52 Unit 1 Foundations of Medical Law and Ethics Copyright Goodheart-Willcox Co., Inc. evolved from different historical foundations. For instance, the north- eastern states are founded on English common law and have signifi- cantly different perspectives on marriage than far western states such as California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, which are influenced by Spanish law. Louisiana’s constitution is based largely on civil law derived from France. The second tier of the hierarchy of law consists of statutes, laws, and legislation. A statute is a formal enactment of Congress or a legislature that governs a nation, state, county, or city. The term statute is often used to distinguish laws passed by a legislature from case law (judicial deci- sions and interpretations made by judges while deciding on the legal issues before them) and regulations. Statutes include the general and permanent laws of the state, incorporating all new laws, amendments, or repeals of old law. Statutes are superior to all other law except the articles and amendments of the Constitution. Many governmental agencies, once authorized by legislation, are able to establish regulations, such as those that protect the public’s health. For example, a state health or agricultural agency may be leg- islatively empowered to protect migrant workers by adopting rules to establish minimum health and safety requirements for agricultural statutes laws established by a legislative body case law law that is made by courts as they resolve issues presented to them United States Constitution Statutes (Congress) Regulations (Administrative Agencies) State Legislative Statutes (State Legislature) Local Government Ordinances State Regulations (State Administrative Agencies such as Department of Health) State Constitution Goodheart-Willcox, Inc. Figure 3.7 The hierarchy of law.