Legal fiction

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A legal fiction is a construct used in the law where a thing is taken to be true, which is not in fact true, in order to achieve an outcome. Legal fictions can be employed by the courts^[1] or found in legislation.

Legal fictions are different from legal presumptions which assume a certain state of facts until the opposite is proved, such as the presumption of legitimacy.

The term legal fiction is sometimes used in a pejorative way. Jeremy Bentham was a famous historical critic of legal fictions.^[2][3] Proponents of legal fictions, particularly of their use historically, identify legal fictions as "scaffolding around a building under construction".^[4]