Is Wal-Mart a person? Kind of, but not really.

One of the odder and more influential innovations in law was the 19th Century “recognition” of corporations as “persons,” a notion that has begun to have a profound impact on our law in the last 30 years. That a corporation is a person is something you learn early in law school, and for the most part the notion is not a disturbing one. I teach contracts, and there seems nothing odd to me that corporations are parties to contracts and thus have rights and duties under those contracts.

That an abstract entity (albeit one with concrete assets) has the same legal status as you and I do becomes weird, however, when you start considering constitutional implications. How can a corporation have the right to free speech? Well, they argue they do, and the argument has profound implications, particularly in the area of campaign contributions. The principal argument against regulating campaign contributions is that doing so limits free speech. If one limits what a person can give to a candidate or a party, the argument goes, then one is limiting the extent to which that person can express his political beliefs. Limiting money, in other words, is limiting speech. But when speaks of limits on corporate contributions, you’re talking not only of limiting money, not speech, but of limiting money from something that isn’t really a person (but that, after all, only is expressing the views of people who have their own rights to free speech).

In an interview with BuzzFlash from 3 years ago, “Is Wal-Mart a Person?,” Thom Hartmann tells “why it is — kind of — but not really:

Nike asserted before the Supreme Court last year, as Sinclair Broadcasting did in a press release last month, that these corporations have First Amendment rights of free speech. Dow Chemical in a case it took to the Supreme Court asserted it has Fourth Amendment privacy rights and could refuse to allow the EPA to do surprise inspections of its facilities. J.C. Penney asserted before the Supreme Court that it had a Fourteenth Amendment right to be free from discrimination – the Fourteenth Amendment was passed to free the slaves after the Civil War – and that communities that were trying to keep out chain stores were practicing illegal discrimination. Tobacco and asbestos companies asserted that they had Fifth Amendment rights to keep secret what they knew about the dangers of their products. With the exception of the Nike case, all of these attempts to obtain human rights for corporations were successful, and now they wield this huge club against government that was meant to protect relatively helpless and fragile human beings.

Fred Baron, R.I.P.

I’ve been immensely fortunate during my career to learn from and work wth some extraordinary people.  One of them, Fred Baron, died yesterday.  According to the Dallas News,

Mr. Baron said a 1970 Ralph Nader speech in Austin influenced him to use the law to regulate business conduct in ways the government could not.  In 1977, Mr. Baron founded his Dallas firm, Baron & Associates, which became Baron & Budd, where he later was joined by his wife. Mr. Baron was highly successful litigating for plaintiffs injured by substances including asbestos, pesticides and lead.

Mr. Baron built a lucrative practice and shared his financial success with a host of causes from the arts to the Texas Democratic Trust, which he founded in September 2005.

“The party was literally broke,” Mr. Stanley said. “There was no energy, there were no funds. Fred enabled a structure to be rebuilt to support and elect Democratic candidates in Texas.”

Many credit Mr. Baron’s trust with giving Dallas County Democrats the wherewithal that led to their success in the November 2006 election.

“He contributed not only his money, but his time and his vision,” Mr. Stanley said.

Mr. Baron’s philanthropic efforts weren’t limited to the political arena.

The first floor of the Baron home was devoted to public charity.

“His house was open to any organization that wanted an event there,” Mr. Stanley said. The home was used for fundraisers for all kinds of Dallas religious, cultural and social justice organizations, Mr. Stanley said.

Mr. Baron was especially proud of the Baron & Blue Foundation, which is dedicated to eliminating homelessness and improving low-cost housing in the Dallas area, his wife said.

“I don’t remember … [the Barons] ever saying no to any request,” Mr. Stanley said. “He was just so generous and open.”