Legal History

So what are the ten cases that have had the biggest impact, not just on the law, but on our collective life more generally?  The world is a big place so I am going to try to focus on cases that have had the greatest impact on our own lives which means that there will  be more focus on jurisdictions that we interact with most—thus not the legal world in its true sense.  But unlike many of the articles and materials I’ve looked at, I don’t want to only consider cases in our home legal system. 

I sat down to sketch a few ideas about the cases that seemed to stand out to me in terms of large scale impact.  Here are some preliminary thoughts:

Of course, I must include Donoghue v Stevenson—the case with the marauding gastropod which not only has intriguing facts but which also began the slow displacement of contractual obligations as the dominant means of organizing  relations, forcing contract to ‘share the field’ with more generalized duties of care.  The fallout continues….as Lord Buckmaster predicted.