Corporate Personhood - Legally Corporations Are "Persons"

[G2099]

" . . . corporate lawyers (acting as both attorneys and judges) subverted our Bill of Rights in the late 1800's by establishing the doctrine of "corporate personhood" -- the claim that corporations were intended to fully enjoy the legal status and protections created for human beings.

We believe that corporations are not persons and possess only the privileges we willfully grant them. Granting corporations the status of legal "persons" effectively rewrites the Constitution to serve corporate interests as though they were human interests. Ultimately, the doctrine of granting constitutional rights to corporations gives a thing illegitimate privilege and power that undermines our freedom and authority as citizens. While corporations are setting the agenda on issues in our Congress and courts, We the People are not; for we can never speak as loudly with our own voices as corporations can with the unlimited amplification of money."

http://reclaimdemocracy.org/personhood/#intro

[OldLeftieLawyer]

1. Now that you've found the origin,

you must next move to the concept of "piercing the corporate veil," and then you'll realize that the "corporate personhood" thing ain't as tough as it seems to be.

People, however, are big troublemakers.

[G2099]

2. Why not start a thread on "piercing the corporate veil"?

[OldLeftieLawyer]

8. Why not, indeed?

[Beam Me Up]

7. OLL, I second G2099's request for a thread: "Piercing the Corporate Veil"

Sounds very interesting. Please elaborate.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

9. Thanks, but .........

........ there's plenty out there that can be gleaned with a simple bit of research.

You'll enjoy what you find.

[G2099]

12. Piercing the Corporate Veil

"As most owners of corporations are aware, the rights and liabilities of a corporation are separate and distinct from those of its shareholders. The corporation is said to be like a veil that shields its shareholders from corporate debts and other similar obligations.

For instance, if a judgment is entered against a corporation, its shareholders will be liable for the judgment only to the extent of their investment in the corporation (the corporate assets); the shareholders' personal assets will not be subject to liability. The general rule is that the corporate entity protects the shareholders from liability beyond their investments.

The situation changes, however, when the shareholders are using the corporation to defraud creditors or achieve injustice. In those cases, Texas courts have "pierced," or set aside, the corporate veil and held the shareholders personally liable for corporate debts and other obligations."

http://www.collierlaw.com/articles/piercing.htm

here is a google on Piercing the Corporate Veil
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=corporate+veil+&btnG=Google+Search

[Wapsie B]

3. I find it amazing that corporations

somehow are granted a voice in government but my right of free speech ends at my employer's doorstep. There needs to be sunset provisions in every corporate charter doing business in this country, no matter where the corporation was founded.

Welcome to DU!

[Coastie for Truth]

4. I have a cousin who is a non-violent pacifist member of PETA

and he has always claimed that since "corporations are people" - by analogy "animals are people."

He maintains that since animals share 99+ percent of their DNA with people, have an "ADP <=> ATP" metabolism, functioning brains, etc. - and corporations don't -- animals are also "people."

I have discussed this with my companion
<>
and she agrees.

[punpirate]

5. Thom Hartmann has covered this subject...

... extensively in his Unequal Protection. And, there's still some dispute about the 1886 Supreme Court's ruling--but, what is beyond dispute is that corporate personhood is not part of the decision itself, but it was inserted into the head notes--the latter are not legally binding.

That said, the decision has been misinterpreted, based on the head notes, often enough that there is legal standing.

The only way to remedy this situation is for a rewriting of the 14th Amendment to include a clear legal definition of corporations as artificial persons and human beings as natural persons, along with a redefinition of the apportionment of those rights to equal protection to natural persons, and to specifically exclude artificial persons from the guarantees to equal protection.

Good luck with that in the current climate of fear and fascist cooperation between government and business. *sigh*

[dweller]

14. link to his website on Unequal Protection

http://www.thomhartmann.com/unequalprotection.shtml

a few chapters are available there.

dp

[whistle]

6. That is not true of course, what the law allows is for real persons

...to hide behind the corporate veil and be able to commit all sorts of illegal and unethical actions which no human person would ever dare do, but be free from prosecution personally using the excuse of having done these things for the greater good of the corporation.

That is how Eron executives are getting away with what they did will the corporate entity known as Eron, has in effect disappeared, but even if it was still in existence, almost all of the crimes committed in the name of Eron, the individuals who committed them are not personally liable. I'm not a lawyer, so I may not have this completely described with the proper terminology, but corporate executives agents who are performing their defined duties in their position of authority in that corporation are immune of all consequences.

Tobacco executives were never held criminally accountable for the deaths of millions of smokers who died from the use of their dangerous products, even though tobacco executives withheld and even falsified reports and findings of these dangers, but the corporate entity could be sued by the survivors of the victims. Now, corporation layers are finding ways to escape even the corporate liabilities, because the victims survivors due to the time that has passed, have less of a case to demand their claims.

Corporate power to get away with such irresponsible acts has gone beyond anything that can be judged as beneficial to society, which through government has given corporations all this power. Corporations can exploit, maim, kill, pollute, fire, harm, disable, lie, commit fraud, deceive, falsify, refuse to pay obligations, ad infinitum all in the name of the ultimate good for society, but in reality are for the good of a few owners and top management, and can turn away from all obligations and set up operations elsewhere and never be held accountable. No human being has that kind of power.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

10. Pssssssssst

Before you get yourself all het up in the wrong direction, go read up on "assumption of risk." That'll make it clearer for you regarding the tobacco executives.

The rest of it, well, you got some research to do.

[dweller]

13. a quick 'legal' question for you OLL

Reading in another thread about the house bill to place restrictions on cities that are establishing their own broadband/wireless internets services, as long as 'corporations' exist that offer the same services (that of course being my understanding of the bill).

my question: aren't cities, towns allowed to 'incorporate' thus becoming equal in status to 'corporations' thus rendering this bill worthless to shut down the public internet services they are offering?

clue me in if you have some idea.

tia
dp

[OldLeftieLawyer]

15. I haven't a clue

Did I mention that I'm not a very good OldLeftieLawyer?

[dweller]

16. that's okay!

you're still a good ol' Leftie. :D

thanks anyway, i'll get an answer sooner or later.

dp

[Gold Metal Flake]

11. Corporations got "human rights" due to a court recorder's error.

Yet the concept of “corporate personhood” hasn’t been around forever; it arrived long after the death of James Madison. It happened in 1886, when a U. S. Supreme Court’s reporter inserted a personal commentary called a “headnote” into the decision in the case of Santa Clara County v. Union Pacific Railroad.

For decades the Court had repeatedly ruled against the doctrine of corporate personhood, and it avoided the issue altogether in the Santa Clara case, but Court reporter J. C. Bancroft Davis (a former railroad president) added a note to the case saying that the Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite had said that “corporations are persons” and should be granted human rights under the free-the-slaves Fourteenth Amendment.

The comment wasn’t a ruling.
In fact, Davis had recorded a remark made in a side conversation that was never a part of a ruling by the Court; he phrased it in a way that implied it was part of the decision, but it wasn’t. To the contrary: in the Library of Congress archives, there is a note in Waite’s handwriting, specifically saying to Davis, “We avoided the constitutional question in the decision”.

The above text, and the post title, are taken from Thom Hartmann's excellent book "What Would Jefferson Do", chapter 8, pages 177 & 178. What has been done can be undone. We need to grow a party that will do it.


Edit: Needed just one more " and a C

[Beam Me Up]

17. nominated (wish more folks would) this is an interesting discussion

.