Why Are Unidentified People Called John or Jane Doe?
The John Doe custom was born out of a strange and long since vanished British legal process called an action of ejectment. Under old English common law, the actions landowners could take against squatters or defaulting tenants in court were often too technical and difficult to be of any use. So landlords would instead bring an action of ejectment on behalf of a fictitious tenant against another fictitious person who had allegedly evicted or ousted him.
In order to figure out what rights to the property the made-up persons had, the courts first had to establish that the landlord really was the owner of the property, which settled his real reason for action without him having to jump through too many legal hoops.
