[johndhi]

The common way people think about common law versus civil law is this:

-common law depends more on courts to make and refine legal decisions -civil law relies more on regulators.

In civil law countries it's more common for the statutes (governing text) to be longer and go into great detail. In common law countries you see some extremely short laws - like the Sherman act in US Antitrust law is like 2 sentences long.

That's the common understanding. These days though both EU and US are converging a bit in their approach.

[no_wizard]

I do take your point, but the Sherman anti trust act is roughly a page to two pages long[0]

Only wanted to provide an accurate take, your overall point I agree with though

[0]: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/COMPS-3055/pdf/COMPS-305...

[johndhi]

Thanks for the fact check. I'm writing on my phone so I can't do this justice, but the operative wording of the Sherman Act (or its followup the Clayton Act) is something like: "unfair restraint on trade is unlawful," or something like that. That's the one to two sentences I'm referring to. My point is that it's extremely limited phrasing. In the 100 years it has been in place there have been thousands or court decisions explaining what it means - and refining and defining what that sentence means in the US legal system.

If the act itself is only 2 pages that is a marvel, though. Usually they spend at least ten explaining why they are passing a law and who they are.

[analog31]

I wonder if this explains the propensity for lawsuits in the US. It's basically our regulation and enforcement mechanism.

[johndhi]

Exactly. Yes. That's the idea.

The US legal system relies more on "ex post" legal enforcement - meaning, if you break the law then you get busted and you personally pay the victim. Europe is a more "ex ante" system - they rely on regulators to strictly define what the law should look like exactly and actually requires industry to do very specific things to comply with it. If someone gets hurt the system compensates them from a fund. The person who hurt them doesn't necessarily pay.

That's the theoretical underpinning and difference in our systems. But like I said the systems have a bit of both these days. Eu is flirting with more class actions, and US has more regulatory scrutiny in certain sectors, like California privacy laws for example being very detailed.

[eru]

UK doesn't seem to have quite as much suing as the US? And they also have a common law system.

In contrast, German military procurement is famous for its endless lawsuits.

[johndhi]

One different with UK is they use the 'English Rule' of fee-shifting. In English civil lawsuits, the losing party has to pay the attorneys fees of the other party.

In the US, there's basically no downside of suing someone if you can keep your own costs down.

[eru]

That makes sense, thanks!