Corporate Personhood: Santa Clara County V. Southern Pacific Railroad
For several years, the law has treated corporations as metaphysical persons. This means that the law regards corporations as persons, but only for certain legal purposes. For example, corporations have some of the same rights as natural people do, such as the right to freedom of speech. Corporate personhood has evolved into a highly controversial topic since it was first established in the famous supreme court case, Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad. This was a case where the Southern Pacific Railroad protested taxes placed on it by several counties in California. The majority decision in the case was given by the chief justice at the time, Morrison Waite; he declared that corporations were persons for the purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment. …show more content…
So, the Fourteenth Amendment primarily serves as the basis for corporate personhood. Corporate personhood is controversial because a lot of natural persons feel that although corporations are indeed full of people, an entire business should not be granted personhood. As a result, the main argument against corporate personhood is that it is unfair to regard corporations as persons but not hold them responsible for all of their actions. For instance, a corporation can be prosecuted just as a natural person can, but unlike a natural person, a corporation cannot be
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