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Hard cases make bad law is an adage or legal maxim. It means that an extreme case is a poor basis for a general law that would cover a wider range of less extreme cases. In other words, a general law is better drafted for the average circumstance as this will be more common. The word hard, as used here, may refer to those whose situations arouse sympathy. The earliest recorded use of the expression dates to 1842. It was used in 1904 by US Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.. Its validity has since been questioned and dissenting variations include the phrase "Bad law makes hard cases", and even its opposite, "Hard cases make good law". ==Discussion== The principle was first set down in print in the judgment of the 1842 English case ''Winterbottom v Wright'' by Judge Rolfe: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. made a utilitarian argument for this in his judgment of ''Northern Securities Co. v. United States'' (1904):〔 Holmes's dissenting opinion in the case, which applied the Sherman Antitrust Act to the securities company, has been described as a reaction to President Theodore Roosevelt's wish to dramatize the issues of monopolies and trusts. The legal scholar Glanville Williams questioned the adage's usage in 1957, writing, "It used to be said that 'hard cases make bad law' - a proposition that our less pedantic age regards as doubtful. What is certain is that cases in which the moral indignation of the judge is aroused frequently make bad law." Bryan A. Garner calls the phrase a cliche; while mentioning Williams's disparagement, he asserts that it remains in frequent use, "sometimes unmeaningfully".〔 In ''Re Vandervell's Trusts (No 2)'', Lord Denning MR stated the following, after one of the barristers in the case had asserted that the issues should be resolved in his client's favour, given that "hard cases make bad law": 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Hard cases make bad law」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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