Definition
In law, simulation refers to the deliberate misrepresentation of a transaction — the act of parties giving a false or deceptive appearance to a legal act that conceals their true intent or the true nature of their agreement. The outward form of the transaction does not reflect the actual arrangement between the parties.
Two distinct but related senses appear in the historical sources:
1. Civil law (Roman/civilian tradition): Simulation is the concealment or misrepresentation of the truth in a legal transaction, where parties purport to engage in one kind of act while actually performing another — or performing no genuine act at all. A sale that is in reality a gift, or a transfer that is in reality a pledge, would be simulated. The apparent transaction is a legal fiction constructed by the parties themselves.
2. French law usage: Simulation is characterized more specifically as collusion — a fraudulent arrangement between two or more persons designed to give a false or deceptive appearance to their transaction. The emphasis here is on coordinated deception, particularly to defeat the rights of third parties (creditors, heirs, tax authorities).
Both senses share the core feature: a gap between the ostensible and the actual. Where that gap is intentional and designed to deceive, the transaction — or the disguised portion of it — may be void, voidable, or subject to challenge by injured third parties.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "Assuming an appearance which is feigned, or not true"; also, a system or environment modeled to predict behavior, or (in sports) the act of feigning injury to obtain a foul.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "The act of simulating, or assuming an appearance which is feigned, or not true; — distinguished from dissimulation, which disguises or conceals what is true."
The common and legal meanings share a core idea — pretense, the false appearance of something — but the legal concept is more specific and structural. In law, simulation is not merely individual deception; it is a defect in a legal transaction, requiring analysis of what the parties actually intended versus what they ostensibly performed. The legal consequences attach not to dishonesty in the abstract but to the enforceability of the disguised arrangement and the rights of third parties affected by it.
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Common Confusion
Simulation is sometimes conflated with fraud, but the concepts are distinct. Fraud involves deception directed at the other contracting party to induce consent. Simulation involves the parties acting together to deceive third parties or the public about what they have actually agreed to among themselves. The colluding parties in a simulation are not deceiving each other — they both know the true arrangement. The deception is outward.
Simulation should also be distinguished from dissimulation. As Webster's 1913 notes, simulation assumes a false appearance, while dissimulation conceals or disguises what is true. In practical legal terms, a simulated transaction creates the appearance of a legal act that either does not exist or is different from what it purports to be; dissimulation involves hiding a real act beneath a different surface. Civil law scholars have distinguished absolute simulation (no real transaction behind the apparent one) from relative simulation (a real transaction, but not the one that appears).
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Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
Absolute simulation: The parties create the appearance of a transaction (a sale, a contract, a transfer) that has no underlying reality at all. The act is a pure fiction. As between the parties, the transaction is void; nothing was actually agreed or transferred.
Relative simulation: The parties execute one apparent transaction to conceal a different, real one. The apparent act (e.g., a sale) is false; the concealed act (e.g., a gift or a loan) is the genuine agreement. The simulated surface transaction is generally held ineffective, but courts may give effect to the underlying concealed transaction if it is otherwise lawful.
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Why It Matters in Research
Simulation is primarily a civil law term. Researchers working in common law sources — particularly English sources before the twentieth century — will rarely encounter it as a term of art. Its natural habitat is Roman law, French law, Louisiana civil law, Quebec law, and the civilian traditions of Latin America and continental Europe. In Anglo-American legal research, the same practical territory is covered by concepts like sham transactions, fraudulent conveyances, and constructive fraud.
Louisiana is the most important domestic American jurisdiction for this term. Louisiana's Civil Code addresses simulation directly (see former Civil Code arts. 2025–2027, now revised), drawing explicitly on French civilian doctrine. Researchers using Louisiana historical materials must understand simulation as a formal doctrine with its own rules about proof, the rights of creditors to attack simulated acts, and the distinction between absolute and relative simulation. Sources from other American states will not use this framework.
In historical legal research, the term's appearance in a source is itself a strong signal about the legal tradition the author is drawing from. Black's both editions define it by reference to civil law and French law — a reminder that nineteenth-century American legal dictionaries frequently imported civilian concepts that had limited purchase in most American courts but were essential in Louisiana and in academic legal writing.
Researchers consulting Burrill's entry should note that the surviving text in the available corpus is truncated, cutting off after the Latin source reference. This is a known gap; the entry should not be treated as authoritative without supplementation from other sources.
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Historical Dictionary Support
The four historical sources are consistent in substance but vary in depth. Black's (1st and 2nd editions) give essentially identical entries — the 2nd edition reproduces the 1st with only minor typographical differences — and both provide the most useful working definitions by distinguishing the civil law and French law usages. The citation to Mackeld's Roman Law (§ 181) is the common anchor, pointing researchers to Heinrich Mackeldey's Handbook of the Roman Law, a widely used civilian treatise in nineteenth-century American legal education.
Rapalje & Lawrence reduce simulation to a single-line civil law gloss ("misrepresentation or concealment of the truth"), offering no elaboration. Burrill's entry begins with the Latin simulatio and then is cut off in the available corpus, preventing any synthesis with that source.
None of the historical dictionaries develop the absolute/relative simulation distinction, which is doctrinally important in civilian jurisdictions. That gap is significant: researchers relying solely on the historical dictionary shelf for Louisiana civil law work will need to consult the civilian treatise literature and Louisiana code commentaries directly.
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Jurisdictional Note
Simulation as a formal legal doctrine is operative primarily in civilian jurisdictions — Louisiana in the United States, Quebec in Canada, and most of Latin America and continental Europe. Common law courts occasionally address equivalent fact patterns but use different doctrinal vocabulary (sham transaction, fraudulent transfer, disguised gift). Research crossing between civil and common law traditions on these issues requires careful attention to whether the jurisdiction has codified simulation rules or relies on equitable and statutory fraud doctrine instead.
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