A Hard Look at Holism and Consequentialism in Hard Cases

Abstract

In any field of law … there may arise the rare “landmark” case in which a court, usually a final appellate court, concludes that the circumstances are such as to entitle and oblige it to reassess the content of some rule or set of rules in the context of current social conditions, standards and demands and to change or reverse the direction of the development of the law.¹