Legal fiction
A legal fiction is a rule or assumption that treats something as legally true despite contrary facts, allowing the law to achieve a particular result.
Fictions of law: Doctrinal devices that let courts apply legal rules through assumptions not established as ordinary facts. This broader category includes assumptions that shape procedure, rights, or jurisdiction.
John Doe: A placeholder name used in legal proceedings for an unidentified or anonymous person. The name once enabled pleading and procedure despite a rule requiring identification of parties.
Roman law: The legal system developed in ancient Rome and later adapted across many legal traditions. Roman jurists used procedural and interpretive fictions that influenced later legal systems.
Legal presumption: A rule directing a factfinder to accept or infer a fact unless specified conditions rebut that conclusion. Unlike a fiction, a rebuttable presumption may yield when contrary evidence is presented.
Legal formalism: An approach that emphasizes legal rules, categories, and internal reasoning in deciding cases. Fictions can preserve formal doctrine while permitting results that its literal rules would block.
Constructive trust: An equitable remedy that treats a person holding property as a trustee, even without an express trust. Equity imposes trustee-like duties despite the absence of an actual trust arrangement.
Ejectment: A common-law action for recovering possession of land from someone occupying it unlawfully. Its procedures developed through fictitious parties and claims that simplified disputes over land.
Common law: A legal tradition in which courts develop law through decisions alongside statutes and other sources. Common-law procedure produced influential fictions, especially in property and pleading.
Deeming provision: A statutory rule directing that a person, event, or circumstance be treated as having a specified legal status. Statutes often state the assumed treatment directly, while a fiction can arise through doctrine or procedure.
Equity: A body of principles and remedies developed to address limits or rigidity in ordinary legal rules. Equitable fictions historically allowed courts to provide remedies without directly discarding established forms.