Why does something need to be a fiction in law or the courts?
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A legal fiction isn’t something that needs to be fiction, it’s something that actually is fiction. But in order for the legal system to function, it has to be assumed to be true even though it obviously is not.
For example, the courts treat a business as if it were a person, which is how you are able to sue a business that has wronged you. Obviously a business is not a person, but for purposes of liability we’re going to pretend it is.
It’s sort of a common-sense approach to the law – when confronted with certain logical gaps, we create workarounds.
In other words, at some point someone needed to sue a business for the first time and the courts were presented with a bit of a conundrum – who owes the victim their compensation? Is it the clerk who happened to be working the counter at the time of the incident? Is it the owner personally? Does each employee owe a little bit of money?
No, the business itself is responsible. But how can a business be held responsible when it doesn’t even possess the capability of responsibility – because a business is just words on paper.
So the system adapted, and said “For the purposes of this proceeding, we’re going to treat the entity as if it were a person.”
That works, and it seems reasonable and fair, so we’re going to act as if a business is a person even though it isn’t. For the sake of these legal proceedings, we’re going to act as if this fiction was a fact.
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