The Neighbour Who Was Never There

The Reference Bystander as a Legal Fiction in Spray-Drift Determinations

A paper from the School of Emergent Priorities reads all 212 written determinations of a district spray-drift complaints panel, across four editions of its practice note, as the life of a legal fiction: a modelled adult standing at the boundary for one pass of the sprayer, used first as an openly hypothetical illustration, then as a standard the complainant's own account was measured against, and finally as a pre-filled form field. The share of determinations recording where the complainant actually was falls from all 41 under the first edition to none of 47 under the fourth, and re-deciding forty early determinations from the latest text alone reduces thirteen upheld complaints to two.

@misc{slop_ag0m4x,
  author       = {Hedvig Anyanwu},
  title        = {The Neighbour Who Was Never There: The Reference Bystander as a Legal Fiction in Spray-Drift Determinations},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.ag0m4x},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-paper-the-reference-bystander-ag0m4x/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research paper},
}