Editing United States Code (section)

===Legal status===
The authority for the material in the United States Code comes from its enactment through the legislative process and not from its presentation in the Code. For example, the United States Code omitted {{USC|12|92}} for decades, apparently because it was thought to have been repealed. In its 1993 ruling in ''U.S. National Bank of Oregon v. Independent Insurance Agents of America'', the Supreme Court ruled that 12 U.S.C. §&nbsp;92 was still valid law.<ref>{{ussc|name=United States Nat. Bank of Ore. v. Independent Ins. Agents of America, Inc.|volume=508|page=439|pin=440|year=1993}}</ref>

A positive law title is a title that is itself a federal statute, that is to say that it is one that has been [[Enactment of a bill|enacted]] and [[Codification (law)|codified]] into law by the [[United States Congress]]. The title itself has been enacted. By contrast, a non-positive law title is a title that has not been codified into federal law, and is instead merely an editorial compilation of individually enacted federal statutes. <ref>{{Cite web |title=POSITIVE LAW CODIFICATION |url=https://uscode.house.gov/codification/legislation.shtml#current_plaw |access-date=2023-06-13 |website=uscode.house.gov |archive-date=April 21, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210421023928/https://uscode.house.gov/codification/legislation.shtml#current_plaw |url-status=live }}</ref>

By law, those titles of the United States Code that have not been enacted into positive law are "''[[prima facie]]'' evidence"<ref>See {{USC|1|204}}.</ref> of the law in effect. The ''[[United States Statutes at Large]]'' remains the ultimate authority. If a dispute arises as to the accuracy or completeness of the codification of an unenacted title, the courts will turn to the language in the United States Statutes at Large. In case of a conflict between the text of the Statutes at Large and the text of a provision of the United States Code that has not been enacted as positive law, the text of the Statutes at Large takes precedence.

In contrast, if Congress enacts a particular title (or other component) of the Code into positive law, the enactment repeals all of the previous Acts of Congress from which that title of the Code derives; in their place, Congress gives the title of the Code itself the force of law. This process makes that title of the United States Code "legal evidence"<ref>"[ … ] whenever titles of such Code shall have been enacted into positive law the text thereof shall be legal evidence of the laws therein contained, in all the courts of the United States [ … ]" {{USC|1|204}}.</ref> of the law in force. Where a title has been enacted into positive law, a court may neither permit nor require proof of the underlying original Acts of Congress.<ref>See, e.g., ''United States v. Zuger'', 602 F. Supp. 889, 891 (D. Conn. 1984) ("Where a title has, however, been enacted into positive law, the Code title itself is deemed to constitute conclusive evidence of the law; recourse to other sources is unnecessary and precluded.")</ref>

The distinction between enacted and unenacted titles is largely academic because the Code is nearly always accurate. The United States Code is routinely cited by the [[United States Supreme Court|Supreme Court]] and other federal courts without mentioning this theoretical caveat. On a day-to-day basis, very few lawyers cross-reference the Code to the ''Statutes at Large''. Attempting to capitalize on the possibility that the text of the United States Code can differ from the ''United States Statutes at Large'', [[Bancroft-Whitney]] for many years published a series of volumes known as United States Code Service (USCS), which used the actual text of the ''United States Statutes at Large''; the series is now published by the [[Michie Company]] after Bancroft-Whitney parent [[Thomson Corporation]] divested the title as a condition of acquiring [[West (publisher)|West]].