Am interested in the way corporations are given "legal person" status. All goes back to Salomon v. Salomon, here.
I am more interested in why that theory of the legally created person is used in an on-again-off-again manner. Seems to be some magical switch in corporate law: you can flip on and off when the results suit your equitable understanding of society. That is fair enough, if you know the law is not really a law but a guiding interest. One way to circumvent "Corporate personality theory" is via the doctrine of agency. I.e., instead of ripping off the mask of the corporation to reveal the motives of the controlling shareholder, the courts can hold that the corp-entity is indeed real but merely an agent of the owner -- which, in corporate family trees, is significant. What I have found missing in this analysis of agency is the real membrane between the controlling shareholder and the sham corporation. I would appreciate any cites (non case law, that is, academic) on that subject. Ken.
