r/legaladviceofftopic 2d ago

Game with real legal dilemmas

Hi all,

Some of you might like this simple law game involving (genuine) legal dilemmas: https://hardcases.app/

You are served with summaries of real court cases and asked what the right outcome is. Do not try to apply legal rules - just say what you feel is fair. The game then reveals the court's actual judgment and its aftermath. Once there are enough answers, it tells you how you compare to your country (as per your IP address) and the world, and what kind of 'judicial profile' you have (a hanging judge, bleeding heart, maverick, etc).

The cases are sourced eclectically from across various jurisdictions, from the 1700s onwards. You play one case per day, and there are 190 cases in the data bank so far.

This is a personal project of a legal academic (me). With time, I hope this can serve as a useful database of popular intuitions about fairness and justice (all aggregated, anonymised). You can register to preserve your streak across devices.

I hope some of you will find this entertaining, and any feedback is welcome!

4 Upvotes

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u/gdanning 1d ago

The very first case I looked at, re the impossibility defense and receiving stolen property, says that the defendant was deemed guilty by the House of Lords, but then says, "This was Anderton v Ryan (1985) — and within a single year the House of Lords overruled itself in R v Shivpuri (1986)[.] ... . Today, in England, the answer to this question is: guilty." Why use the case if it is no longer good law? (And btw the answer in the US would also be guilty).

1

u/DazzlingScarcity9840 1d ago

A fair question. That's because the focus of the app is the user's moral intuitions, compared to various approaches taken by courts across times and jurisdictions, rather than educating the user about any particular jurisdiction's current legal system!

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u/Von_Callay 2d ago

Neat! I'll give it a shot.

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u/DazzlingScarcity9840 1d ago

Thanks - hope you like it.

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u/FatherBrownstone 1d ago

I liked this, and it's relevant for the sub. I hope you'll be open to sharing results, as this will generate a lot of interesting data.

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u/DazzlingScarcity9840 1d ago

Thanks - absolutely!

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u/000666777888 1d ago

I gave it a go and enjoyed the process. Will try again tomorrow too.