Editing Corporate personhood (section)

====Legislation in the United States====
{{See also|Creature of statute}}
Federal statutes that refer to "persons" generally include both natural and juridical ones, unless a different definition is given. This general rule of interpretation is specified in Title 1, section 1 of the [[United States Code|U.S. Code]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/1/1.html |title=United States Code: Title 1,1. Words denoting number, gender, and so forth &#124; LII / Legal Information Institute |publisher=.law.cornell.edu |date=2010-04-07 |access-date=2011-01-19}}</ref> known as the Dictionary Act, which states:

<blockquote>
In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, unless the context indicates otherwise—

the words "person" and "whoever" include corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies, as well as individuals;
</blockquote>

This federal statute has many consequences. For example, a corporation may enter contracts,<ref name="Torres-Spelliscy 2017 i763">{{cite web | last=Torres-Spelliscy | first=Ciara | title=Does "We the People" Include Corporations? | website=American Bar Association | date=October 11, 2017 | url=https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/we-the-people/we-the-people-corporations/ | access-date=March 28, 2024}}</ref> sue and be sued,<ref name="School 2023 g402">{{cite web | last=School | first=Purdue Global Law | title=Corporate Personhood: What It Means and How It Has Evolved | website=Purdue Global Law School | date=January 6, 2023 | url=https://www.purduegloballawschool.edu/blog/news/corporate-personhood | access-date=March 28, 2024}}</ref> and be held liable under both civil and criminal law.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lo |first=Stefan H. C. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ugr5DAAAQBAJ&dq=held+liable+under+corporation+%22both+civil+and+criminal+law%22&pg=PA15 |title=In Search of Corporate Accountability: Liabilities of Corporate Participants |date=2016-01-14 |publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing |isbn=978-1-4438-8771-7 |language=en}}</ref> Because the corporation is legally considered the "person", individual shareholders are not legally responsible for the corporation's debts and damages.<ref name="Winkler 2022 g477">{{cite web | last=Winkler | first=Adam | title=Corporate Person-hood and Constitutional Rights for Corporations | website=New England Law Review | date=February 26, 2022 | url=https://www.newenglrev.com/volume-54-1/corporate-personhood-and-constitutional-rights-for-corporations | access-date=March 28, 2024}}</ref>  Similarly, individual employees, managers, and directors are liable for their own malfeasance or lawbreaking while acting on behalf of the corporation, but are not generally liable for the corporation's actions. {{Citation needed|reason=This is primarily a matter of state law. If there is some applicable federal statute (and cases construing it), this should be clarified.|date=February 2021}}

Among the most frequently discussed and controversial consequences of corporate personhood in the United States is the extension of a limited subset of the same [[constitutional right]]s.

Corporations as [[juridical person]]s have always been able to perform [[commerce|commercial]] activities, similar to a person acting as a [[Sole proprietorship|sole proprietor]], such as entering into a contract or owning property. Therefore, corporations have always had a "juridical personality" for the purposes of conducting business while shielding individual [[shareholder]]s from personal liability (i.e. protecting personal assets which were not invested in the corporation).

[[Ralph Nader]], [[Phil Radford]] and others have argued that a strict [[originalist]] philosophy should reject the doctrine of corporate personhood under the Fourteenth Amendment.<ref>[http://hlrecord.org/2008/11/letter-to-the-editor-ralph-nader-on-scalias-originalism/ Ralph Nader and Robert Weissman. Letter to the Editor: Ralph Nader on Scalia's "originalism"]. ''[[Harvard Law Record]]'', Published: Thursday, November 13, 2008, Updated: Tuesday, September 29, 2009.</ref> Indeed, Chief Justice [[William Rehnquist]] repeatedly criticized the Court's invention of corporate constitutional "rights", most famously in his dissenting opinion in the 1978 case ''[[First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti]]''; though, in ''Bellotti'', Rehnquist's objections are based on his "views of the limited application of the First Amendment to the States" and not on whether corporations qualify as "persons" under the Fourteenth Amendment.<ref name="US SUPREME COURT 1978-04-06">{{cite web |author=United States Supreme Court |title=FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF BOSTON v. BELLOTTI |number=76–1172 |website=Findlaw |date=1978-04-06 |url=https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/435/765.html |access-date=2020-09-04}}</ref> Nonetheless, these justices' rulings have continued to affirm the assumption of corporate personhood, as the Waite court did, and Justice Rehnquist himself eventually endorsed the right of corporations to spend in elections (the majority view in ''Bellotti'') in his dissenting opinion in ''[[McConnell v. FEC]]''.