Rules generalised from extreme instances fit the ordinary case badly.
The English legal maxim. The mechanism is that extreme facts pressure the court toward a just outcome in this case, and the rule generalised from it fits the ordinary case badly.
In practice
- A safeguarding rule written after one catastrophic case requires four signatures for a school trip to the local park.
- A refund policy rewritten after one large fraud makes every ordinary refund take eleven days.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Law & Politics
- Essay
- Rules that restrain power, and advice on using it