Legal person

A legal person is an entity -- usually an organization, such as a corporation -- that the law treats for some purposes as if it were a person, distinct from its members or owners. It has the legal capacity to represent its own interests in its own name, before a court of law, to obtain rights or obligations for itself, to impose binding obligations, or to grant privileges to others, for example as a plaintiff or as a defendant. A legal person exists wherever the law recognizes, as a matter of policy, the personality of any entity, regardless of whether it is naturally considered to be a person. Thus, a legal person is distinguished from a natural person.

In the case of artificial persons, such as corporations, the "personality" of the legal person, including its rights, obligations and actions, is separate from any of the natural persons who participate in it, and is not altered by a change in their membership. Therefore, the natural persons who are members cannot be held fully accountable for the actions of the legal person.