Common Law

As distinguished from statutory law created by the enactment of legislatures, the common law comprises the body of those principles and rules of action, relating to the government and security of persons and property, which derive their authority solely from uses and customs of immemorial antiquity.

Black’s Law Dictionary, 4th Edition Page 346
As distinguished from equity law, it is a body of rules and principles, written or unwritten, which are of fixed and immutable authority, and which must be applied to controversies rigorously and in their entirety, and cannot be modified to suit the peculiarities of a specific case, or colored by any judicial discretion, and which rests confessedly upon custom or statute, as distinguished from any claim to ethical superiority. Klever v. Seawall, C.C.A.Ohio, 65 F. 395, 12 C.C.A. 661.

As distinguished from ecclesiastical law, it is the system of jurisprudence administered by the purely secular tribunals.