Citizens must accept that changing law disappoints settled expectations

Evidence

Obviously, people who live in a society with inescapably changing laws must inescapably accept many of the changes. A man may buy a house, for example, with certain expectations about his powers and duties as an owner and about the powers and duties of others with respect to him. But no one is likely to suggest that he ought thereby to acquire a complete immunity from duly enacted statutes or evolving judicial doctrines which disappoint these expectations. No one would suppose, for example, that he could justly complain about later increases in the tax rate. To some extent the Constitution does give protection to expectations based upon executed contracts, viewed in the light of the law in force at the time of execution. But, as we shall see, the protection has had to be sharply liiited. The law cannot stand still; and some at least of the public purposes which it exists to serve must imperatively be served. — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process, 2963

Categorization

• XREF: Feeds the law-course tension between stability, reliance, and justice thread central to Volume 1’s prospective-overruling chapters. — connects to: Law changes by layered accretion rather than revolutionary overhaul. — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 75

Broader Connections

• Law changes by layered accretion rather than revolutionary overhaul. #qualifies (0.78) — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 75