there's a far easier point for appeal, as well - the claim that the tenant has the burden of proof, here. that's utterly ridiculous. yet, there it is.

if you make a claim in court, you always have the responsibility to demonstrate it. it doesn't matter what the claim is. the presumption of innocence is consequently merely a rule of thumb. the judge may have confused herself over this.

(if this is a real case).

if the state is accusing you of guilt, you have the presumption of innocence. but, if the state is accusing you of innocence, you have the presumption of guilt. if the state is accusing you of tiredness, you have the presumption of awakeness. & etc. it's not some moral principle. it's an application of the scientific method; a kind of null hypothesis - you start with the reversal of x and you determine if there's enough evidence to overturn x.

so, when the writer of this paper puts together the words that the tenant needs to show on balance of probability that the landlord's claim is false, she's not understanding what those words mean - that only makes sense in the context of reversing the null hypothesis. there's no balance of probabilities in overturning an assumption - it's by counter-example. and, that's impossible.

so, no wonder she didn't consider the right part of the law - she has her burden of proof backwards.

the idea that what somebody says in court should be treated as true unless it can be proven false is some kind of weird, classist backwardsness, or...i don't even know how to get my head around it.

if the tenant had the burden of proof, then the landlord would literally be able to make anything at all up and dare the tenant to disprove it. that's not how our legal system works, or has ever worked - and hopefully it will never work that way. that's not a justice system....

i'm leaning strongly towards "fake". a few more hours...