Also known as: legal persons · legal personality · juridical person · juristic person · artificial person
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
An entity recognized by law as capable of holding rights and duties. Such an entity can enter contracts, sue and be sued, and bear obligations independently of its members or creators.
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Logan Lane and Leah Lamb signed a cryopreservation agreement with a fertility clinic that labeled their frozen embryos as the couple's personal property. After the couple separated, Logan demanded removal of the embryos. The clinic refused, citing a later research agreement with a device manufacturer. A court treated the embryos as property subject to the original contract rather than as legal persons capable of independent rights.
After Liam Larson divorced Lucy Liu, the insurer treated the policy beneficiary designation naming Lucy as "wife" as referring to a distinct legal person whose status had changed. Lucy argued the designation created a new legal person unaffected by divorce. The court rejected that view and enforced the policy according to the original designation's meaning.
Lucas Lee sued the city after a social services department denied him benefits. He named the department itself rather than individual officials. The court held that the department qualified as a legal person under the civil rights statute and could be held liable for the alleged constitutional violation.
Lumen Capital, a corporation headquartered in one state, sued a customer in federal court claiming diversity jurisdiction. The customer argued the corporation's principal place of business was in the forum state. The court treated the corporation as a legal person whose citizenship is determined by its principal place of business for jurisdictional purposes.
Lighthouse Shipping issued a stock dividend to its shareholders. The IRS treated the distribution as taxable income to the recipients. The court examined whether the corporation, as a legal person distinct from its shareholders, had created new property or merely divided existing interests.
A state attempted to tax the Bank of the United States. The bank sued in federal court. The court held that the bank, as a legal person created by federal law, could invoke federal jurisdiction to protect its chartered rights against state interference.
A contract requires a promisor and a promisee, each capable of holding rights and duties. A course or family account label is not a legal person and cannot serve as a contracting party. Without two legal persons, no enforceable agreement exists.
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Yes. A corporation is a legal person whose citizenship for diversity jurisdiction is determined by its state of incorporation and principal place of business.
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At common law, a husband and wife were treated as a single legal person. They therefore could not form a conspiracy by themselves because two distinct legal actors are required.
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…R. Co. v. Letson , 2 How. 497 (1844), the Court modified this initial approach. It held that a corporation was to be deemed an artificial person of the State by which it had been created, and its citizenship for jurisdictional purposes determined accordingly. Id. , at 558-559. Ten years later, the Court in Marshall v. Baltimore…