A legal doctrine is a framework, set of rules, test, or procedural steps — often established through precedent in the common law — through which judgments can be determined in a given legal case. For example, a legal doctrine comes about when a judge makes a ruling where a process is outlined and applied, and allows for the ruling to be equally applied to like cases. When enough judges make use of the process, it may become established as the de facto method of deciding like situations.

Examples

Examples of legal doctrines include:

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! Doctrine

! Definition and use

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| Faithless servant

|Under the laws of a number of states in the United States, and most notably New York State law, an employee who acts unfaithfully towards his employer must forfeit all of the compensation he received during the period of his disloyalty. It is a very old common law doctrine that springs out of agency law.

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| Fundamental breach, also known as fundamental term or repudiatory breach

|Under English common law, performance may be held to be so substandard that the party injured by the breach is to be exonerated from the performance even if the contract specifically requires performance in the face of a breach.

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  • Pierre Schlag and Amy J. Griffin, "How to do Things with Legal Doctrine" (University of Chicago Press 2020).
  • Emerson H. Tiller and Frank B. Cross, "What is Legal Doctrine?," Northwestern University Law Review, Vol. 100:1, 2006.