Includes bibliographical references (p. xxix-xxxvii) and index.

"This book provides an introduction to the processes and the skills necessary in the professional use of case law and legislation, and to the development of American legal institutions. The casebook starts with materials from the first decades of American history, with relatively simple common law litigation, statutes, and institutions. The materials largely explore the developing law on the related questions of product liability and workplace injury. The casebook explores the sources, forms, and development of law, the analysis and synthesis of judicial precedents, the interpretation of statutes, the coordination of judge-made and statute law, and the uses of legal reasoning."--Publisher's website.