Talk:Legal person/Archive 1

New page for "Corporate Personhood Debate

I have begun cleaning this up, but "Juristic Person" still reads too much like a debate. I think this page can be simplified further -- and more additions on the history (what is a juristic person and why to they exist) are much needed.

If what I deleted is germaine to the political debate, please add it back to Corporate Personhood Debate, but let's keep this page focused on the legal definition and history of origination of 'juristic persons'. riverguy42 19:59, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Move "controversies" to article on Corporate Personhood Debate? Finally achieve NPOV?

Under the scope of WikiProject: Law, this article should define and document the legal concept of a "Juristic person", including history. There should be no "controversy" over the idea of a juristic person as a legal concept. I have established a page for the debate and copied the section on controversies there.

I am attempting to follow the precedent of having pages for Abortion (medical term) and Abortion Debate (political/cultural/religious debate). Any comments?

For this article, on removing the "controversies" section, do we have a concensus that we can remove the NPOV tag?

riverguy42 17:15, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Changing Objections to "Corporate Personhood" Title

The last half of the paragraph on Constitutional Protections seems to not be an objection to juristic persons. It seems to be an argument supporting juristic personhood. I suggest changing the title of Section 5 to Controversies about "Corporate Personhood" or something of the like. Either that or moving to the supportive statements to a new section. -Daniel 12:39, 13 March 2007 (GMT) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 57.67.16.50 (talk) 12:41, 13 March 2007 (UTC).

This explanation of corporate personhood is a improvement on the explanation of it the last time I looked at this item. It was then called: "corporate personhood controversy" Now it is called "corporate personhood debate." As a non-lawyer I have been following corporate personhood for about 5 years but I think the proper term for it is a "court doctrine", which has been used as a precedent for court cases over 200 times in the past century. I don't see why you have the word "debate" in the title and I think that it is a mistake to have it there. I have never heard it called "corporate personhood debate" or "corporate personhood controversy", only "corporate personhood." It is a pretty common term so why try to slant it by adding the word "debate"?

Going back in history to before the Santa Clara decision is completely irrelevant to the meaning of "corporate personhood" because corporate personhood began with the Santa Clara decision.

I think you mention that corporations have been avoided attempts to regulate them by invoking their human rights under the 1st amendment {freedom of speech] the 22d amendment [equal protection under the law] as if they were human beings. Rrrrprrrr (talk) 03:29, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Merging Legal Person and Legal entity

I've pretty muched merged in anything substantive from the "legal person" article. This article could be written more smoothly, but I'm not sure I have the interest/motivation. I've met my primary interest which was to straighten out the unnecesary duplication of "legal entity", "artificial person" and the less used, more colloquial "legal person". A somewhat duplicative article (at least in name) is "corporate personhood". I'd like to see the core of the issues and criticisms in that article stay separate, but perhaps rename that article. B 21:30, May 11, 2004 (UTC)

• I agree, "corporate personhood" is a synonym of "legal entity," but the article of that name completely ignores that. I think merging still might be appropriate, with a large section devoted to the constitutional implications. It's just confusing and terribly inaccurate to convince people that "corporate personhood" is limited to the U.S. and means only the application of constitutional rights.--Bibliophylax 21:06, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
• I moved the article from Legal entity to Juristic person. The term "legal entity" is often (but not always) understood to include BOTH legal/juristic persons and natural persons. This article, however, is only about legal/juristic persons. To avoid any confusion or misrepresentation, I moved the article to the title which better describes it (juristic person).--Bibliophylax 15:21, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Jurisdiction?

I'm under the impression that a corporation being a "person" is a quirk of US law and is not common elsewhere (I don't actually know; I came to the article for answers). Maybe the article could be expanded in this direction? --Dtcdthingy 00:19, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

• Expanding the article in a direction to discuss personality would probably be something for corporation, since most legal entities are not considered to be persons. Pmadrid 01:23, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

• This is actually incorrect. "Legal entity" and "legal person" are synonyms. Anything which the law recognizes as an independent entity capable of being regulated, sued, etc. is a juristic person. This includes everything listed in the "examples" section of the article. --Bibliophylax 23:27, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

• This is incorrect. Virtually every legal system has "artificial persons." --Bibliophylax 21:03, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Legal personality versus legal entity

It would take a company lawyer to clarify this, but I think that legal personality is very different from legal entity, and the redirect should be removed. As I understand it (and I am not a lawyer), a corporation has legal personality (i.e. it remains itself even if the natural persons comprising it change, can own property in its own name, be sued etc.)

Whereas an unincorporated association or a partnership is still a legal entity, even it does not have legal personality.

If this is right, we need to demerge the two conecpts, for instance in the link from 'company limited by guarantee' TobyJ 10:24, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

You've got it. LLCs, LLPs, partnerships, and associations are not seperate persons from their members, but corporations are. Pmadrid 16:33, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Legal personality and legal entity are actually the same thing depending on the law of the jurisdiction.--Bibliophylax 21:06, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Initial definition

"A legal entity is a legal construct through which the law allows a group of natural persons to act as if it were an individual for certain purposes" --- that's PoV!

How? Pmadrid 20:08, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

That is not POV. It's a completely accurate definition. Actually, I'd be worried that it might be plagarized from a dictionary.--Bibliophylax 21:06, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Wiki from "Corporate Personhood"

There was a separate article for "corporate personhood" which I redirected here. The text there is mostly worthless (it completely misunderstands the legal concept of corporate personhood) and was very Non-NPOV (it was plagarized from a advocacy group seeking to "abolish corporate personhood"). I've merged much of the issues into a new section of this article, but there is probably some work to do still. Here's the text of the old article for others seeking to further merge the articles: Talk:Juristic person/CP --Bibliophylax 15:21, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

=======================================

I have performed explicit searches on several sections of text from the original article on Corporate Personhood in search of support for Bibloiphylax' claim that the text was plagarized from an advocacy group, to no avail. There does not appear to have been any plagarism. On the assessment that the text was mostly worthless, on the basis that it misunderstands the legal concept, I think that is a matter of opinion. For example, the CP text appears to draw from recent research and discoveries of letters found that prove conclusively that the case law most frequently cited to support your assessment of "worthless" is cited incorrectly. Professor Richard W. Behan writes that

"Orthodoxy has it the Supreme Court decided in 1886, in a case called Santa Clara County v. the Southern Pacific Railroad, [118 U.S. 394 (1886)] that corporations were indeed legal persons. I express that view myself, in a recent book. So do many others. So do many law schools. We are all wrong."

Ref. Alaska Bar association article here [1]

The juristic persons article should represent, from a legal perspective, the concept and history of the 'creature of statute'. Currently there are several problems with the portrayal of both, it's not at all hard to pick up the POV wars and subtle dissembling that are under the surface, and as it stands the page richly deserves the NPOV tag.

I'd like to see this page achieve neutrality. Therefore, I'll cite wiki precedent on heated topics such as abortion, where we have separate articles for 'abortion' and 'abortion debate' and restore the original "Corporate Personhood" article under the name "Corporate personhood debate", and clean out the POV stuff from the present article.

Now, on the substance of the current article, quoting from the very astute Rodhay (below) who's got it right:

The legal personality of a corporation always consists of five legal rights -- the right to sue and be sued, the right to a common treasury or chest (including the right to own property), the right to a corporate seal (i.e., the right to sign contracts) the right to hire agents (employees) and the right to make by-laws (self-governance).

Let's take the political cases for or against the extension of other rights of juristic persons, unsupported allegations of plagarism and subjective judgements of worth elsewhere.

==================================================== --riverguy42 16:27, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

So far this is very USA oriented. There is a large literature on the concept of corporate personality in Europe. The best book on the theory is Frederick Hallis, Corporate Personality: A Study in Jruisprudence (1930) C. A. Cooke, Corporation, Trust and Company: A Legal History, (1950) Cooke's book is more on the legal history while Hallis in on the legal theory. For France see Raymond Saleilles, De La Personalité Juridique: Histoire et Théories, (1922) For the Roman Empire see P. W. Duff, Personality in Roman Private Law, (1938) Rodhay 20:25, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

• Rodhay, thanks for the ideas! I'll try to check this books out, but if you have some international perspective to add it would really help! I know corporate personhood has been around for half a millenium, and exists in virtually every legal system. My background is mostly limited to the U.S. I hope this article gets more international coverage as it progresses.--Bibliophylax 21:48, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Raymond Saleilles, De La Personalité Juridique: Histoire et Théories, (1922) For the Roman Empire see P. W. Duff, Personality in Roman Private Law, (1938) Rodhay 20:25, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

• Rodhay, thanks for the ideas! I'll try to check this books out, but if you have some international perspective to add it would really help! I know corporate personhood has been around for half a millenium, and exists in virtually every legal system. My background is mostly limited to the U.S. I hope this article gets more international coverage as it progresses.--Bibliophylax 21:48, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I teach a course on business history. The first unit is on the legal nature of the corporation, so I have done a fair amount of reading on the subject. The idea that corporations have legal personality goes back to 12th or 13th century. (I can check and get a more precise date.) It begins in the Roman Church, as a way of dealing with the suborganizations (e.g., monasteries, orders, etc.) It allows the Pope and the canon law courts to deal with these groups as a whole rather than as a bunch of individuals. In England the idea spreads to the treatment of municipal governments and other subsidiary political organizations. From there it migrates to organizations dealing with public welfare (e.g., charities, universities, etc.) It is only late in the game (16th and 17th centuries)that the idea is used for business corporations. The legal personality of a corporation always consists of five legal rights -- the right to sue and be sued, the right to a common treasury or chest (including the right to own property), the right to a corporate seal (i.e., the right to sign contracts) the right to hire agents (employees) and the right to make by-laws (self-governance). Individual jurisdictions may add other rights. In British common law countries these are determined by the courts or by legislation. In the USA there is a long history of rulings on whether the provisions of the constitution (including the admendments) apply to corporations. (The constitution says nothing about corporations). Some times the rights are given. Sometimes they are not. It is important to stress that the legal rights and duties of a corporation are separate and distinct from the legal rights and duties of the individuals who make up the corporation.Rodhay 00:59, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

One other point. The article states that US corporations only achieved legal personality with the 14th amendment. This is incorrect. They always had legal personality. Court interpretations of the 14th amendament simply extended corporate legal rights into areas which some people think that they should not have. Corporations have claimed and received legal rights under the fourth and fifth amendments as well. Rodhay 01:12, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

It might also be of interest to discuss how corporate persons are created. In Britain, the Bubble Act of 1720, limited the right to either the King or Parliament. This was the law until the Bubble Act was repealed in the 1820s. Eventually the Joint Stock Company Acts later in the century, allowed a corporation to be formed simply by application and the payment of a fee. The USA during the colonial period followed British law. After the Revolution, the ability to form corporations was given to the state level of government --- originally by act of the state legislature --- later by application and fee. Each state has its own history. In France corporations were created by Royal decree until the Revolution when corporations were abolished. Napoleon's code of commerce in 1808 provided a method whereby corporations (sociétés anonymes) could be created. Rodhay 23:14, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Some more references: John P. Davis, Corporations (1904) W. R. Scott, Joint Stock Companies to 1720 (1912) Joseph S. Davis, Essays in the Earlier History of American Corporations (1917) A.B. DuBois, The English Business Company after the Bubble Act, 1720-1800, (1938) Bishop Hunt, The Development of the Business Corporation in England 1800-1860 (1936) Rodhay 23:31, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Ideas for improvement

I think this article has come a long way. I hope to continue improving upon it, and would welcome any help--in particular, with the following ideas:

• More international and comparative perspective. Virtually every country recognizes juristic persons. Unfortunately, most of my knowledge is about the U.S. and U.K. (with some background in European civil law countries). Making this a little less Western-centric should be a priority.
• Examples of the results of the doctrine. There are a lot of cases where the extension of rights to juristic persons has been used to prevent racist seizure of property, prevent political censorship of speech, etc. as well as cases where it has allowed Wal-Mart to open in a city over the objections of the city council. Some of these examples might be helpful.
• Sources (particularly for the "objections" section). Some more cites would be great, especially for the parts detailing objections to the doctrine.
• Watch out for vandalism/POV. A few IPs have been vandalizing, blanking, or inserting POV diatribes into this article. Let's keep an eye on this. I really think this could be a great article--both interesting and unbiased.

Thanks --Bibliophylax 14:13, 6 March 2007 (UTC) Continued help with this is appreciated!

Huge POV problems

I have to say that this article contains quite a bit of POV coming from some of the heavier non-vandal editors. It's starting to sound like a litany of reasons why corporate personhood is a good idea. Here are a few examples:

• "Because limited liability protected the owners and the corporation wasn't a legal person subject to the law. There was no accountability for corporate wrong-doing." This implies that before personhood, corporations were allowed to run amok. They weren't.
• "This ensured that creditors would be able to seek relief in the courts should the corporation default on its obligations..." This ignores that "sue and be sued" goes both ways. As does this: "Corporate personhood has come under criticism recently, as courts have extended other rights to the corporation beyond those necessary to ensure their liability for debts."
• "Opponents of "corporate personhood" don't want to eliminate legal entities, but do want to strip them of some of these rights through constitutional amendment. Often, this is motivated by a desire to restrict the political speech and donations of corporations, interest groups, lobbies, and political parties." Weasel words. Weasel words. Weasel words.
• "Opponents of "corporate personhood" object to a corporation, particularly a for-profit corporation, being called a person. Their ideology focuses on the distinction between an individual and what they consider a "soulless corporation." Thus, some opponents of "corporate personhood" don't actually want to change the theory, they just want to change the terms used." Wow.

Personhood gives corporations more—not less—power. This article sometimes seems to give exactly the opposite impression. The point of this article is not to attack or defend the concept of juristic personhood, it's to explain what it is. Let's try to pay attention to POV from any direction here.

--Loqi T. 20:19, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Loqi, I think you might be confusing the extension of constitutional rights to juristic persons, and the theory of corporate personhood. "Corporate personhood" is simply the notion that legal entities are "subject to legal rights and duties." It means they have legal existence. Before judges created the legal fiction, corporations couldn't be sued for civil wrongs or prosecuted for criminal violations. Corporations in the 1500s used "I don't exist!" as a defense. So it is completely true that corporations were allowed to run amok (although at that point there were many fewer corporations). However, you are absolutely right that it cuts both ways. Juristic persons can also own property, defend themselves in court, and receive the benefit of certain rights. I think the article is clear on that.
I definitely think that this article can be improved, and I'm continuing to work on it. It's kind of difficult, because there is some confusion with the terminology. Some groups use the term "corporate personhood" to mean "constitutional rights for juristic persons." That's not at all an accurate reflection of the doctrine.

--Bibliophylax 21:46, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Unless there's a separate article dealing with corporate rights, this article is the place for such issues. In the 1500s, corporate entities were strictly limited in scope and duration, and their activities were much more directly managed by governments. The legal theory of corporate personhood cannot meaningfully be separated from the implications of such a theory. Use of the "corporations don't exist" legal dodge, only renders all corporate agreements unenforceable in both directions, and pushes personal liability onto employees and shareholders. If pre-20th century corporate attorneys were going into court saying, "The ACME corporation doesn't exist for purposes of paying its creditors, but does exist for the purposes of shielding its owners from liability," I'd like to see it. If their debtors could just put forward the same argument, why would corporations even bother to have drafted any contracts in the first place? If the law says that corporations exist for the purpose of limiting potential liability of its human agents, yet those same agents have unlimited potential for personal profit, that seems like an important point to mention in this article. Corporate personhood seems to have been invented to support the continuation of limited liability of shareholders, which seems significant enough to mention. The article says the theory was invented to hold corporations accountable for their debts, but it could just as accurately be said that it was invented to prevent the collapse of the theory of limited liability, or that it was invented to consolidate corporate power by giving some human rights to these fictional, non-biological, non-localizable, infinitely-reconfigurable, immortal entities.

The point of all this is to say that this is inherently controversial subject matter, and it needs to be treated with great care and balance. And right now, the article is skewed.

--Loqi T. 01:46, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Loqi, I don't disagree with your concerns on the subject matter. However, controversy can't justify revisionism. The historical record is clear that judges in the 1500s who created the "juristic person" concept did so to allow corporations to be held accountable in court. It was not done to create/protect/extend limited liability (which was created earlier and separately guaranteed by legislatures and monarchs). HOWEVER, you're totally right that without this doctrine corporations would have been severely limited and a disfavored form (as the article notes, "This simple fiction enabled corporations to acquire wealth, expand, and become the preferred organizational form for businesses of all sizes.").

I agree with you that this can be a controversial subject. I think the article needs to clearly distinguish the corporate personhood doctrine (which simply means that "corporations are subjects of legal rights and duties") and the corporate personhood controversies (which revolve around the use of the word "person" or the extension of constitutional rights to juristic persons). It's really tempting to say that "corporate personhood is evil" because of some of these concerns. But that certain of ranting about our personal opinions isn't appropriate here :)

Like I said, I'll continue to work on this article. I plan, in particular, to beef up the section on Controversy/Opposition to applications of the doctrine. I also want to include more international coverage, since this is a very international concept. And as you requested above, I'll get more info on the original English cases and the use of the corporate "non-personhood" defense.

--Bibliophylax 13:36, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

It's great that you're digging up research on this, Bibliophylax. Thanks. I know how tough it can be to find stuff from previous centuries.

I'm not so sure the historical record is clear on the motivations of 16th century judges though. My guess is that court records from that far back are very sparse. Unless a judge in a precedent-setting case went on record to explain the rationale of a ruling establishing corporate personhood, any comment on motivation is speculative. Furthermore, an explicit statement from a judge saying "corporations are persons because otherwise they're beyond this court's reach" doesn't preclude a motivation of protection for the preconditions of that impunity (such as limited liability). Speculation is okay on Wikipedia if it is identified as such and attributed to a reputable source, such as a scholar on the topic, but interpreting the historical record, however clear it may be, is original research unless it's published somewhere else first. Normally a little bit of writer interpretation is allowed to slide, in the interest of more interesting narrative, but on a controversial topic it must be kept to a minimum.

Actually, the article says that common law only allowed for a natural person to sue or be sued until the Industrial Revolution prompted the artificial personhood legal theory. It says there was no recourse when corporations committed crimes or breached contracts in the U.S. until 1819, and it implies the same is true for most of the world, though it ambiguously mentions 16th century England. This section could use some attention if the history really is clear.

I think an expanded section about controversies is a great idea. This article seems to have been attracting heavy vandalism, and a section like that can relieve some of the pressures that lead to such behaviors. If you're familiar with the early problems of the abortion article, you can see how a controversial topic can become less of a battleground just by honestly and fairly representing various opinions somewhere in the article, and being scrupulously neutral in the rest.

--Loqi T. 06:10, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

It would be wrong to suggest that the absence of corporate personality would mean that corporations are unaccountable. The individuals who make up the corporations are all citizens who have the duty to uphold the law. They can be sued, or can sue in their own name. They can be liable for debts. Corporate personality simply makes it more convenient. Rodhay 23:19, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Title: juristic or juridical?

Just a couple of observations (and I'm new here),

First, just curious about the choice of "Juristic" over "Juridical" for the title. Juridical seems to be more prevalent (by 5-3 according to a comparison of explicit search results on Google, etc.), so would "Juridical Person" be the preferable title?

Secondly, it seems the term "Corporate Personhood" refers to a political debate topic in the US, while "Juristic/juridical Person" is an important legal concept. These are two different things.

Bibliophylax and others have rightly observed that some of the stuff that was under "Corporate Personhood" was not appropriate under the scope of WikiProject Law, but it seems now (since they were merged) that important facts around the political debate (which, indeed, don't belong HERE) are nonetheless now missing from Wiki.

Could we not achieve both (a) a solution to the neutrality dispute on the "Juristic Person" page, and (b) an illumination of the 'Corporate Personhood' political debate by setting up a separate page on "Corporate Personhood Debate", thereby allowing a 'legal definition' page and a 'political issue' page to exist separately?

Wiki precedent for this is that we have (for example) separate pages for "Abortion" (medical info) and "Abortion Debate" (the political issue).

Again, I'm new here and just trying to understand how things work.

Hope this helps...

riverguy42 22:27, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

"Juridical person" is three times as common on edu pages, twice as common on UK academic pages, and almost twice as common on Google Scholar pages. But see below.--Espoo (talk) 19:15, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I personally am in favour of "juristic person". I am a professional translator working from Dutch, French and Spanish into English. "Juridical person" to me sounds very much like a calque of "personne juridique" and the adjective juridical is frequently sprayed around by persons who have little experience of translating and little English language competence. Frequency of occurrence as measured by google hits is a very blunt instrument indeed. Everybody got to be somewhere! (talk) 17:45, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Raw Google searches can indeed be quite misleading, but that's quite different from what's presented here. When edu and especially ac.uk pages show a strong preference, this means a lot already. When Google Scholar hits also speak for the same preference, it's a fairly clear case. Unless you can show that many Google Scholar results are using the term to talk about something else, your personal preference is meaningless both linguistically and in applying WP naming policies. I'm a professional translator too, and such numbers should make any professional translator very insecure unless s/he happened to be an expert on legal terms. Can you present sources to back up your claims, i.e. disparaging "juridical person"?

And you completely ignored the massive preference for legal person by the same search methods that produce a strong majority of reputable sites (edu) to mostly reputable sites (ac.uk) to almost exclusively reputable sites (Google Scholar). --Espoo (talk) 18:47, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law: juridical person:

in the civil law of Louisiana : an entity (as a partnership or corporation) that is given rights and responsibilities[2]

Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law: natural person:

a human being as distinguished from a person (as a corporation) created by operation of law —compare JURIDICAL PERSON, LEGAL PERSON

AMEX Dictionary: Juristic Person

Legal person. [3]

BusinessDictionary.com: juristic person

Alternative term for juridical person.[4]

juridical person: Entity (such as a firm) other than a natural person (human being) created by law and recognized as a legal entity having distinct identity, legal personality, and duties and rights. Also called artificial person, juridical entity, juristic person, or legal person. [5] --Espoo (talk) 19:21, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was Move completed. --Woohookitty^Woohoo! 10:54, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Requested move

See dictionary definitions above and these Google searches showing use on mostly reputable sites:

• Google Scholar:
  • 10,400 for \"legal person\"
  • 2,250 for \"juridical person.
  • 1,190 for \"juristic person..

• UK academic sites:
  • 1,280 from ac.uk for "legal person.
  • 45 from ac.uk for "juridical person.
  • 22 from ac.uk for "juristic person.

• US academic and school sites:
  • 9,080 for site:edu "legal person.
  • 905 for site:edu "juridical person.
  • 258 for site:edu "juristic person.

Encyclopaedia Britannica CD 2000: 13 hits for legal persons 1 hit for juridical persons 0 hits for juristic persons

--Espoo (talk) 19:35, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

• Support Obvious. Congratulations on the patience to add so many statistics, although it's cracking walnuts with a sledgehammer. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:31, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Well, when a WP editor says s/he is a professional translator and has expertise in the field, those search results are the bare minimum to show s/he is wrong or at least drastically oversimplifying the situation. If s/he can find reputable sources that show that my statistics are for example comparing apples and oranges or naive/misleading for some other reason, the sledgehammer becomes a soggy replica made of paper. --Espoo (talk) 07:46, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Massive expansion and engagement of subject matter experts

Given that the short-term stability of human civilization would seem to be hanging on the actions and accountability of multinational corporations (and the choices "they" make relating to a multitude of issues), a massive expansion of this article would seem to be in order.

The "Extension..." and "Controversies..." sections are lamentably under- and miscontented. For example, the sentence, "Social commentator Thom Hartmann is among those that [sic] share this view" (Controversies...) does not qualify as content (for obvious reasons beyond grammar) and should be removed.

The establishment of "Legal Personage" (LP) in the corporate instance has produced global effects. This article can (if any in Wikipedia can) bear some non-neutral POVs; other articles in Wikipedia with sections for pros and antis provide precedent. In the end, this article is about morality, materialism, power and control -- so advocacy, bias and emotion ought to be expected.

Respectfully recommend that the editor(s) actively seek out additional expert "Real Person" (RP) sources; content about LP in other nations besides US and PRC also needed. If Mr. Hartmann (noted above) has published something germane about this subject, perhaps it might be considered for inclusion. In the meantime, the usual suspects come to mind: Smith, Rand, Hayek, Friedman, et al.; George Ball, advocate of MNCs, too.

Aside, the challenges relating to credibly augmenting this article go to the heart of the fundamental weakness of Wikipedia's anonymous authorship model; on the other hand, this article presents an exhilarating opportunity to try the most pressing case of our time: Corporate v. Human Interests, on this docket.

Dstlascaux (talk) 14:58, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Error of fact

A trust is NOT a legal person. "trust" should be removed from the examples section. stack of references: [6]

The legal concept of a trust evolved in common law jurisdictions. The reference below argues that legal personhood is in principle incompatible with the common law concept of a trust: [7] Maybe there is some jurisdiction that defines legal personhood as including trusts but I could not find any references to one. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.214.36.59 (talk) 07:52, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

The Entire "Debate" Is the Claim That "Corporations" Are Persons and not Property

The entire debate is over whether or not corporations are "property" or "persons." It is clear since they can be bought and sold that they are "property," therefore there are many who are attempting to educate the public with respect to what a fallacy and fantasy "corporate person-hood" actually is. It was another "created" entity to our Constitution which was done by one of the Supreme Courts after the slavery issue was addressed, and the 13th, 14th, 15th and 16th Amendments were passed, which were actually meant to address the slavery issue (which was a contentious one during the debates over the language in the Constitution from the beginning), granting full personhood to slaves. Instead, the corporate lawyers in this country began bringing suits in the name of "corporations" and the Supreme Court acted outside any of it's legal authority within the Constitution by "amending" it, again, rather than interpreting and applying it by giving "standing" to this fictional "corporate person-hood."

It IS a legal fallacy, that is truth. In fact, lawyers run up huge legal tabs in actions which are now known as "raising the corporate veil." In other words, through litigation exposing the fallacy whereby they can then go after the true "persons" the owners of the corporation themselves. It's a way to up the ante really in legal fees, bottom line, since it is a "fallacy" and fiction created by the courts themselves in order to grant "standing" to corporations in an attempt to protect the owners themselves which it does not. Now, the lawyer merely adds the names of the owners of the corporation in any action brought against a corporate entity, which in and of itself exposes the lie for what it is. Corporations clearly are property, not people, at all.

The Supreme Court has interpretive powers, but no amendment powers. There are only three entities to that Constitution - the federal government, the state government and the people. Thus, "corporate person-hood" until the Constitution is lawfully amended according to it's terms is a fallacy, and they have no real standing in any court throughout the nation. It's is the judiciary who have given them that right, which they had no authority to do.

So what's all the discussion about "juristic person" rather than "raising the corporate veil," and exposing this fallacy for what it is? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ross1776 (talk • contribs) 07:48, 1 April 2009 (UTC)