Maybe Corporations Aren't People

A recent opinion takes on the corporate personhood mantra.

Lacking a voice, a corporation cannot testify. Lacking ears, it cannot hear. Lacking a mind, it cannot have personal knowledge or a memory to be refreshed. Lacking a conscience, it cannot take an oath or provide an affirmation.

— Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster, answering a corporation’s plea of “if you prick us, do we not bleed?” with a resounding “no.” The defendants in a matter involving the Dole Food Company had designated a corporation as an expert witness on the question of valuation, as opposed to an individual officer of the corporation. In a thorough rebuke (flip to the next page), Chancellor Laster walks through almost 200 years of precedent for narrowly construing corporate personhood. Damn anti-business states like Delaware!

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