...From a layperson's or intuitive perspective, it must seem improbable that corporations can speak, assert privacy rights, or invoke the double jeopardy clause. Even in a legal world filled with fictions, the corporate claim to personal Bill of Rights guarantees must appear fantastic to the non-lawyer.
41 Hastings Law Journal (March, 1990) 577, 655, "Personalizing the Impersonal: Corporations and the Bill of Rights" (Carl J. Mayer).

Declarant, ____________________________________, is a competent witness over the age of 18 years of age, has personal knowledge of the information stated here, and does Solemnly state that:

1. I am a natural born, adult white Man, one of the People of the United States of America and one of the People of California.

2. I was curious and researched legal contemplation of the phrase 'fiction of law'. I present the results of my research here.

3. From Bouvier's Law Dictionary (1856) [Internet edition], http://www.constitution.org/bouv/bouvierf.txt [as of August 7, 2002]:

FICTION OF LAW. The assumption that a certain thing is true, and which gives to a person or thing, a quality which is not natural to it, and establishes, consequently, a certain disposition, which, without the fiction, would be repugnant to reason and to truth. It is an order of things which does not exist, but which the law prescribes or authorizes; it differs from presumption, because it establishes as true, something which is false; whereas presumption supplies the proof of something true. Dalloz, Dict. h.t. See 1 Toull. 171, n. 203; 2 Toull. 217, n. 203; 11 Toull. 11, n. 10, note 2; Ferguson, Moral Philosophy, part 5, c. 10, s. 3 Burgess on Insolvency, 139, 140; Report of the Revisers of the Civil Code of Pennsylvania, March 1, 1832, p. 8.
2. The law never feigns what is impossible. fictum est id quod factum non est sed fieri potuit. Fiction is like art; it imitates nature, but never disfigures it. It aids truth, but it ought never to destroy it. It may well suppose that what was possible, but which is not, exists; but it will never feign that what was impossible, actually is. D'Aguesseau, Oeuvres, tome iv. page 427, 47e Plaidoyer.
3. Fictions were invented by the Roman praetors, who, not possessing the power to abrogate the law, were nevertheless willing to derogate from it, under the pretence of doing equity. Fiction is the resource of weakness, which, in order to obtain its object, assumes as a fact, what is known to be contrary to truth: when the legislator desires to accomplish his object, he need not feign, he commands. Fictions of law owe their origin to the legislative usurpations of the bench. 4 Benth. Ev. 300.
4. It is said that every fiction must be framed according to the rules of law, and that every legal fiction must have equity for its object. 10 Co. 42; 10 Price's R. 154; Cowp. 177. To prevent, their evil effects, they are not allowed to be carried further than the reasons which introduced them necessarily require. 1 Lill. Ab. 610; Hawk. 320; Best on Pres. Sec. 20.
5. The law abounds in fictions. That an estate is in abeyance; the doctrine of remitter, by which a party who has been disseised of his freehold, and afterwards acquires a defective title, is remitted to his former good title; that one thing done today, is considered as done, at a preceding time by the doctrine of relation; that, because one thing is proved, another shall be presumed to be true, which is the case in all presumptions; that the heir, executor, and administrator stand by representation, in the place of the deceased are all fictions of law. "Our various introduction of John Doe and Richard Roe," says Mr. Evans, (Poth. on Ob. by Evans, vol. n. p. 43,) "our solemn process upon disseisin by Hugh Hunt; our casually losing and finding a ship (which never was in Europe) in the parish of St. Mary Le Bow, in the ward of Cheap; our trying the validity of a will by an imaginary wager of five pounds; our imagining and compassing the king's death, by giving information which may defeat an attack upon an enemy's settlement in the antipodes, our charge of picking a pocket, or forging a bill with force and arms; of neglecting to repair a bridge, against the peace of our lord the king, his crown and dignity are circumstances, which, looked at by themselves, would convey an impression of no very favorable nature, with respect to the wisdom of our jurisprudence." Vide 13 Vin. Ab. 209; Merl. Rep. h.t.; Dane's Ab. Index, h.t.; and Rey, des Inst. de I'Angl. tome 2, p. 219, where he severely censures these fictions as absurd and useless.

It seems to be a rule founded in common sense, as well as strict justice, that fictions of law shall not be permitted to work any wrong, but shall be used ut res magis valeat quam pereat, 3 Rep. 28, b. and this rule, so equitable in itself, seems recognized in the common law. 13 Rep. 21; 2 Vent. 200. United States v. 1960 Bags of Coffee (1814), 12 U.S. (8 Cranch) 398, 415, 3 L.Ed. 602, 608.

Ut res magis valeat quam pereat. That the matter may have effect rather than fail.
BLACK'S LAW DICTIONARY, 7th Ed. (1999), p. 1697.

Fictitious. Founded on a fiction; having the character of a fiction; pretended; counterfeit. Feigned, imaginary, not real, false, not genuine, nonexistent. Arbitrarily invented and set up, to accomplish an ulterior object.
BLACK'S LAW DICTIONARY, 6th Ed. (13th reprint, 1998), p. 624.

Fictio cedit veritati. Fictio juris non est ubi veritas Fiction yields to truth. Where there is truth, fiction of law exists not.
BLACK'S LAW DICTIONARY, 6th Ed. (13th reprint, 1998), p. 623.

Fictio legis inique operatur alicui damnum vel injuriam A legal fiction does not properly work loss or injury. Fiction of law is wrongful if it works loss or injury to anyone.
BLACK'S LAW DICTIONARY, 6th Ed. (13th reprint, 1998), p. 623.

Fictitious plaintiff. A person appearing in the writ, complaint, or record as the plaintiff in a suit, but who in reality does not exist, or who is ignorant of the suit and the use of his name in it. It is a contempt of court to sue in the name of a fictitious party.
BLACK'S LAW DICTIONARY, 6th Ed. (13th reprint, 1998), p. 624.

...The assent can get back to the date of delivery to the stranger only by virtue of the doctrine of relation, which is a fiction of law in which there is always equity, never working an injury, and which is never permitted or applied so as to do wrong to third persons. (Broom's Legal Maxims, "In fictione juris," etc. 128, and cases cited; ... A fiction of law "is defined to be a legal assumption that a thing is true which is either not true, or which is as probably false as true; the rule on this subject being that the court will not endure that a mere form or fiction of law, introduced for the sake of justice, should work a wrong contrary to the real truth and substance of the thing." (Per Lord Mansfield, C. J., Johnson v. Smith, 2 Burr. 962; Broom's Legal Maxims, 128.)"
(emphasis added) Hibberd v. Smith (1885), 67 Cal. 547.

"Even accepting the fiction that, as applied to drivers, motor vehicle responsibility statutes are intended to promote safety, it is just too much fiction to contend that, applied to a judgment debtor held vicariously liable for the omission of a sub-agent, the statute is anything but a means of enforcement of judgments." Miller v. Anckaitis, 436 F2d 115, 118 (CA3 1970) (enbanc) [cert. den. 403 U.S. 910, 29 L.Ed.2d 688, 91 S.Ct. 2203].
Perez v. Campbell (1971), 402 U.S. 637, 29 L.Ed.2d 233, 244 fnt. 14, 91 S.Ct. 1704.

Signed: ________________________________________

At: ____________________________________________

Dated: _________________________________________