The authors of The Real Life Dictionary of the Law, Gerald and Kathleen Hill, describe the term Legal Fiction: “Legal fiction. n. A presumption of fact assumed by a court for convenience, consistency or to achieve justice. There is an old adage: Fictions arise from the law, and not law from fictions.” From Orans Dictionary of the Law, 1999, this definition of legal fiction is found: “A legal fiction is an assumption that something that is (or may be) false or nonexistent is true or real. Legal fictions are assumed or invented to help do justice. For example, bringing a lawsuit to throw a nonexistent “John Doe” off your property used to be the only way to establish a clear right to the property when legal title was uncertain.” Merriam-Websters Dictionary of Law, 1996, states: “legal fiction: something assumed in law to be fact irrespective of the truth or accuracy of that assumption.” Is this the reason behind the use of full caps when writing a proper name? Are the U.S. and state governments deliberately using a legal fiction to “address” people? We say deliberate because their own official publications state that proper names are not to be written in full caps. In the same respect, by identifying their own government entity in full caps, they are legally stating that they are also a legal fiction.
Posted on: Wed, 30 Jul 2014 01:50:17 +0000
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