ABSTRACT
It comes as a surprise to many physicians that there is no such thing as “The Law” in the United States of America. Rather, there are only a multiplicity of individual laws in the various legal jurisdictions, some arranged in parallel and others in hierarchical order. There are 51 constitutions (50 state and 1 federal), 51 sets of legislated statutes (50 state legislatures’ sets and 1 federal legislature's set), 51 sets of judge-made case law (50 state court systems’ decisions and 1 federal court system's decisions), and 51 sets of administrative laws (50 state sets and 1 federal set). Thus, the answer to “What does the law require?” depends on the jurisdiction in which the question is asked.
