legal fiction
Useful courtroom pretense
A legal fiction is a fact assumed true by a court for the purpose of applying a rule, even when known to be false or unproven.
Corporations are treated as "persons" for certain legal purposes—they can sue, own property, enter contracts—though no one believes a corporation is actually a human being.
Legal fictions allow the law to handle situations its original rules didn't anticipate.
Clever deceptive strategy
- contrivanceClever invention or scheme
- deviceConstructed tool or machine
- abstractionDistilling to essential qualities
- presumptionBelief held without proof
imputation · deeming · personification · incorporation · facade · pretense · nominalism · expedient
Prior authoritative example
- equityImpartial treatment or ownership value
- common lawJurisprudence from judicial decisions
- case lawJudge-made legal doctrine
- adjudicationFormal decision on disputes
Unverified belief accepted as true
- suppositionBelief without proof
- counterfactualContrary-to-fact supposition
- thought experimentHypothetical scenario for reasoning
artifice
Clever deceptive strategy
- contrivanceClever invention or scheme
- deviceConstructed tool or machine
- abstractionDistilling to essential qualities
presumption · imputation · deeming · personification · incorporation · facade · pretense · nominalism · expedient · convenience
corporate veil
Legal separation of entity from owners
- tackingAngled sailing maneuver
precedent
Prior authoritative example
- equityImpartial treatment or ownership value
- common lawJurisprudence from judicial decisions
- case lawJudge-made legal doctrine
adjudication · judiciary · Santa Clara · Blackstone · formalism
assumption
Unverified belief accepted as true
- suppositionBelief without proof
- counterfactualContrary-to-fact supposition
- thought experimentHypothetical scenario for reasoning
- Roman LawRoman law, Corpus Juris Civilis, Justinian Code, Twelve Tables, Digest
- justice themestrial, verdict, judge, jury, lawyer
- legal fictioncourtroom drama, detective stories, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Firm, Presumed Innocent
- jurisprudencenatural law, Hart, Austin, Thomas Aquinas, rule of law
- Pseudolawsovereign citizen
- courtroomjudge, jury, oath taking, lawyer, bench
legal fictionmatter of fact
Unemotional and factual
ground truth · physical reality · material fact · objective truth · objective reality
legal, fiction, illegal, fictional, legalize, legally, legalized, illegally, legality