Comment & Debate
Ken Blanchard “Corporate personhood.” Keloland. January 24, 2010: “Well, maybe not; but corporations can act and be held legally responsible for their actions. If Cory is correct, then corporations could not be sued in Court. That is what legal personhood means: the name of a corporate body can appear on one side of the v. in a case name. If the law says a corporation is a legal person then, by definition, it is that kind of person.
Without legal personhood, Planned Parenthood could not have taken a position v. Casey; nor could the Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye have sued the city of Hialeah when the latter tried to legislate it out of the city limits. Neither abortion rights organizations nor churches have beliefs, feelings or desires. Moreover, corporations could have no legal rights, so the Government could step in at will and seize the Sierra Club’s treasury and any property it collectively owns. Or, to put it slightly different, the Sierra Club could not own property. I doubt that Cory is really committed to any of these consequences of his declaration.”