Corporate Personhood

Well apart from the fact that the corporation probably has more money, there is the problem that responsibility in a corporation is diffuse. Suppose you buy a product that malfunctions and mains you, I'll wait here while you do that ... Whom do you sue? The guys who put it together? But they were just following the manual saying how to put it together. The guy who wrote the manual? Got his information from the designer of the product. The designer? Died two years ago in a car crash. The CEO? Joined the company after you bought the product. The guy who was CEO when the product was designed? Knows nothing at all about engineering, but repeatedly told his employees that maiming people was bad and should be avoided. And so forth. There may not even be one particular person who is verifiably to blame, but if there is it's going to be darn difficult to (a) find him (b) prove it.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Well typically that's not going to be very difficult. What's Plan B?It's just much easier to hold the corporation responsible. Is it important to find scapegoats, or is it better that the injured party should be able to get compensation without engaging the services of Hercule Poirot?

Well apart from the difficulty of locating them, what if they don't have any assets?

Well, this "legal personhood" is the way we've found to give them legal existence and responsibilities and potential culpability. If you'd like some other way to do exactly the same thing, then that would be a distinction without a difference. If you'd like them not to be held legally responsible, then I think that that's a bad idea. But I don't think that that's what you're getting at.It should be pointed out that the legal personality of corporations does not prevent individuals within the corporation from being brought to book. Ask Ken Lay if you don't believe me. But what it does mean is that there is always something you can bring to book. And this is, I think, good.

But then what if the boss isn't remotely responsible, but the total assets of the person who is consists of a half-eaten Kit-Kat and a spoon?Shouldn't our justice system produce some sort of semblance of justice?

But, as I pointed out, the notion that the corporation is responsible doesn't pre-empt the notion that the management are also personally responsible. What we have is a situation where at the very least the corporation is responsible for things that it does wrong. This doesn't prevent us from holding individuals within the corporation responsible as well.

This is both true and odd; but on the other hand there is (AFAIK) nothing that says that an author can't establish a corporation, solely owned by him, which owns his works.

In practice, wouldn't the result of this be that a CEO would always have written into his contract that the corporation will pay for his defense and reimburse him for any damages he's found liable for?

Yes, well, that's not always going to be practical. In the case of the Bhophal disaster, for example, the factory was owned by Union Carbide. Union Carbide is wholly owned by Dow Chemical. The volume of Dow Chemical shares is 8.2 million. I'm not sure how many of those are held by small investors, but you might end up having to build a courtroom the size of the Titanic. However, when Dow Chemical, the corporation, is sued, the money they pay out negatively impacts the dividends and share price of their shares, thus making the investors poorer in exact proportion to the number of shares they hold. Is this not satisfactory?Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Using whose money? If it's his own, then he's not doing it qua employee of the corporation.

But what if they decide to spend it on ice-cream instead?

The good people of Washington D.C. would like a word with you.