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Motorist Claims Corporation Papers Are Carpool Passengers

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Re: Motorist Claims Corporation Papers Are Carpool Passengers

#11

Post by anywherenotes »

malandrew wrote: post #3

Given his intent with this, I would love something like this to make it to the SCOTUS, since the granting of personhood to corporations is absurd and needs to be overruled. Giving a corporation personhood gives it all the rights of being a person with none of the consequences. You can't jail a corporation like you can with people.

From my limited understanding of law (based on what I found when I was looking to incorporate): There is a 'natural person' and 'legal person'. A natural person is also a legal person, but a legal person doesn't have to be a natural person. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_person

Legal person doesn't have all the same rights, for example I don't think corporation can marry, and thus have a right to not testify against it's partner. (I believe married people can plead 5'th in order to not testify against their spouse.)

Please don't take legal advice from this post, it could be utterly wrong.

Re: Motorist Claims Corporation Papers Are Carpool Passengers

#12

Post by dlss »

anigbrowl wrote: post #6
malandrew wrote: post #3

Given his intent with this, I would love something like this to make it to the SCOTUS, since the granting of personhood to corporations is absurd and needs to be overruled. Giving a corporation personhood gives it all the rights of being a person with none of the consequences. You can't jail a corporation like you can with people.

So when you need to make a contract with a corporation, who will you make it with? When you want to sue one, who will you sue? The individual officers? How are you going to prove they were responsible? If you sue the CEO because of something his subordinates did, and he dies 6 months later, what would happen to your legal action? The legal fiction of corporate personhood exists for a good reason; it allows parties ex…

> When you want to sue one, who will you sue?

Okay, since I'm sensing this is about to become a type theory conversation, let's start with the function definition:

sue :: Person -> Claim -> Person -> Maybe Money

Now you're basically saying that, given the above definition, we have no choice but to have Company implement the Person typeclass. Unfortunately, there is a lot of code already using the Person typeclass for purposes that are absurd when a Corporation is passed. Consider:

valid_for_carpool :: [Person] -> Boolean

So what to do? One option is to send out emails telling our colleagues to be very careful when using the Person typeclass. The other option is to create a new Suable typeclass, and implement it for both corporations and people.

Which one do you prefer?

Re: Motorist Claims Corporation Papers Are Carpool Passengers

#13

Post by jwoah12 »

anywherenotes wrote: post #11
malandrew wrote: post #3

Given his intent with this, I would love something like this to make it to the SCOTUS, since the granting of personhood to corporations is absurd and needs to be overruled. Giving a corporation personhood gives it all the rights of being a person with none of the consequences. You can't jail a corporation like you can with people.

From my limited understanding of law (based on what I found when I was looking to incorporate): There is a 'natural person' and 'legal person'. A natural person is also a legal person, but a legal person doesn't have to be a natural person. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_person Legal person doesn't have all the same rights, for example I don't think corporation can marry, and thus have a right to not testify ag…

Hard to believe that in this day and age, a corporation still doesn't have the right to marry.

Re: Motorist Claims Corporation Papers Are Carpool Passengers

#14

Post by anigbrowl »

thwest wrote: post #10
anigbrowl wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So when you need to make a contract with a corporation, who will you make it with? When you want to sue one, who will you sue? The individual officers? How are you going to prove they were responsible? If you sue the CEO because of something his subordinates did, and he dies 6 months later, what would happen to your legal action? The legal fiction of corporate personhood exists for a good reason; it allows parties ex…

Yeah so keep the useful senses of the definition and not the harmful senses (unlimited political speech). This is not paradox inducing.

That's a kind of arbitrary approach. Individuals have unlimited freedom of speech, why shouldn't groups of individuals exercise that same right? I'm rather less rah-rah on the first amendment than most, and would far rather have publicly financed elections, but I can't really see a philosophical problem with Citizens United. Unions (which are specialized corporations) would not take kindly to restriction of their free speech, and CU benefited them as much as any other corporate speaker.

Re: Motorist Claims Corporation Papers Are Carpool Passengers

#15

Post by pdonis »

dlss wrote: post #12
anigbrowl wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So when you need to make a contract with a corporation, who will you make it with? When you want to sue one, who will you sue? The individual officers? How are you going to prove they were responsible? If you sue the CEO because of something his subordinates did, and he dies 6 months later, what would happen to your legal action? The legal fiction of corporate personhood exists for a good reason; it allows parties ex…

> When you want to sue one, who will you sue? Okay, since I'm sensing this is about to become a type theory conversation, let's start with the function definition: sue :: Person -> Claim -> Person -> Maybe Money Now you're basically saying that, given the above definition, we have no choice but to have Company implement the Person typeclass. Unfortunately, there is a lot of code already using the Person typeclass for…

have Company implement the Person typeclass

The obvious solution is to factor out a base class, LegalPerson, with some but not all of the behaviors of the existing Person class. Then derive a separate Company class from LegalPerson. All the stuff we don't want corporations to have, we leave in the existing Person class, so Company doesn't have it.

create a new Suable typeclass

I would view "Suable" as an interface implemented by LegalPerson, and inherited by Person and Company. LegalPerson obviously has to implement lots of interfaces. :-)

Re: Motorist Claims Corporation Papers Are Carpool Passengers

#16

Post by anigbrowl »

bcherry wrote: post #5

Carpool Lane: "2 or more persons per vehicle" CA Vehicle Code: '"Person" includes a natural person, firm, copartnership, association, limited liability company, or corporation.' ( http://dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d01/vc470.htm ) Pretty reasonable argument in the abstract. But I don't think that the Articles of Incorporation should be considered a physical manifestation of that corporation, so I don't see how you could cl…

But I don't think that the Articles of Incorporation should be considered a physical manifestation of that corporation, so I don't see how you could claim that the corporation was "in the vehicle".

I'm not sure as I haven't studied it, but I suspect the corporation 'lives' at the address for service; alternatively, in a filing cabinet in the CA Secretary of State's office ;-) It certainly doesn't travel around with its papers, any more than you are your passport.

Re: Motorist Claims Corporation Papers Are Carpool Passengers

#17

Post by pdonis »

malandrew wrote: post #3

Given his intent with this, I would love something like this to make it to the SCOTUS, since the granting of personhood to corporations is absurd and needs to be overruled. Giving a corporation personhood gives it all the rights of being a person with none of the consequences. You can't jail a corporation like you can with people.

I sympathize with the intent of this; I agree that the doctrine of corporate personhood, in its current form, has done far more harm than good. (I don't favor abolishing it, but rather modifying it along the lines given downthread, by factoring out the aspects of personhood that corporations should share and only giving corporations those aspects.)

But I seriously doubt that this method of getting the issue before a court will work. There are way too many legasl dodges that can be taken before it gets to that point. To really get it to SCOTUS, one would need to have a case where far more substantial harm is done and where the doctrine of corporate personhood plays a key role in the harm. I don't see that here; it's too obviously a ploy and too easy to label as frivolous.

Re: Motorist Claims Corporation Papers Are Carpool Passengers

#18

Post by thwest »

anigbrowl wrote: post #14
thwest wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah so keep the useful senses of the definition and not the harmful senses (unlimited political speech). This is not paradox inducing.

That's a kind of arbitrary approach. Individuals have unlimited freedom of speech, why shouldn't groups of individuals exercise that same right? I'm rather less rah-rah on the first amendment than most, and would far rather have publicly financed elections, but I can't really see a philosophical problem with Citizens United . Unions (which are specialized corporations) would not take kindly to restriction of their fr…

I want democracy to be about human to human negotiation. I don't want the basic unit of our society to be as abstract as one that would include corporations and unions (and computer programs? and other, smaller governments?). Corporations and unions exist to further human endeavors. To the extent that they aid individual humans, those humans will voice their support for higher-order structures. The higher-order structures should always be responsible to the entire field of individuals, and never granted moral status of their own.

Re: Motorist Claims Corporation Papers Are Carpool Passengers

#19

Post by anigbrowl »

dlss wrote: post #12
anigbrowl wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So when you need to make a contract with a corporation, who will you make it with? When you want to sue one, who will you sue? The individual officers? How are you going to prove they were responsible? If you sue the CEO because of something his subordinates did, and he dies 6 months later, what would happen to your legal action? The legal fiction of corporate personhood exists for a good reason; it allows parties ex…

> When you want to sue one, who will you sue? Okay, since I'm sensing this is about to become a type theory conversation, let's start with the function definition: sue :: Person -> Claim -> Person -> Maybe Money Now you're basically saying that, given the above definition, we have no choice but to have Company implement the Person typeclass. Unfortunately, there is a lot of code already using the Person typeclass for…

I suggest we start with the existing concept of a legal person. Lawyers, judges, and legislators already know quite well that a corporation is not a real person, which is why I referred to it as a 'legal fiction' above. The purpose of such a legal fiction is economy, that is not having to have two complete sets for rules for individuals and groups in matters of property, contract, and tort.

I would not begin with your definition above; I just gave a few obvious examples of why corporate personhood makes legal disputes an awful lot simpler for everyone involved, to the point where most people take it for granted. Corporations are the solution to legal problems involving collective action. Their history is intertwined with the development of modern democracy, as groups became a viable alternative to monarchs. If you want to understand the origin of corporations in common law systems, you may as well begin with the City of London Corporation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London_Corporation

Re: Motorist Claims Corporation Papers Are Carpool Passengers

#20

Post by dlss »

pdonis wrote: post #15
dlss wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When you want to sue one, who will you sue? Okay, since I'm sensing this is about to become a type theory conversation, let's start with the function definition: sue :: Person -> Claim -> Person -> Maybe Money Now you're basically saying that, given the above definition, we have no choice but to have Company implement the Person typeclass. Unfortunately, there is a lot of code already using the Person typeclass for…

have Company implement the Person typeclass The obvious solution is to factor out a base class, LegalPerson, with some but not all of the behaviors of the existing Person class. Then derive a separate Company class from LegalPerson. All the stuff we don't want corporations to have, we leave in the existing Person class, so Company doesn't have it. create a new Suable typeclass I would view "Suable" as an interface im…

Ignoring the fact that Person is clearly a subclass of Mammal, I like this.

A couple comments:

- the name LegalEntity feels better to me. (I think it's less likely to be confusing to the lawgrammers who'll be maintaing the code).

- Once we have LegalEntity in place, we should consider discarding the Suable typeclass -- it looks to me like LegalEntity perfectly describes what we're looking for.

There's still a lot of refactoring to be done (I still can't believe the CA Vehicle Code considers a person "a natural person, firm, copartnership, association, limited liability company, or corporation."), but now that the types have been cleared up we have a good foundation to move towards.

Things we should consider going forwards:

- Will the constitution refer to Person, or to LegalEntity? ("new Person() == new Person()" has a nice ring to it if you ask me)

- Why can't all LegalEntities be acted upon in the same way? (Some Legal entities can be put in jail for instance). Is there a type we are missing?

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