Gresham's law the building of the Temple from the Bible and the Mishna in tractate Bava Metzia () from the Talmud. Ibn Taimiyyah (1263–1328) described the phenomenon as follows: In an influential theoretical article, Rolnick and Weber (1986) argued that bad money would drive good money to a premium, rather than driving it out of circulation. However, their research did not take into account the context in which Gresham had made his observation. Rolnick and Weber ignored the influence of legal tender legislation, which requires people to accept both good and bad money as if they were of equal value. They also
Hard cases make bad law 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". The maxim dates at least to 1837, when a judge, ruling in favor of a parent against the maintenance of her children, said, "We have heard that hard cases make bad law." The judge's wording suggests that the phrase was not new then. 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,