Corporate person

Corporate personhood is the legal notion that a corporation, separately from its associated human beings (like owners, managers, or employees), has at least some of the legal rights and responsibilities enjoyed by natural persons (physical humans). For example, corporations have the right to enter into contracts with other parties and to sue or be sued in court in the same way as natural persons or unincorporated associations of persons. In a U.S. historical context, the phrase 'Corporate Personhood' refers to the ongoing legal debate over the extent to which rights traditionally associated with natural persons should also be afforded to corporations. In 1886 it was clear that the Supreme Court had accepted the argument that corporations were people and that "their money was protected by the due process clause of the 14th Amendment"—an Amendment that was made to protect African Americans' rights (Zinn 261). Another example is that in Kasky v. Nike, Inc. asserted a free speech 'right to lie', while in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc, Hobby Lobby asserted a freedom of religion 'right' to exempt itself from aspects of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

As a matter of interpretation of the word "person" in the Fourteenth Amendment, U.S. courts have extended certain constitutional protections to corporations. The basis for allowing corporations to assert such protections under the U.S. Constitution is that they are organizations of people, and the people should not be deprived of their constitutional rights when they act collectively. In this view, treating corporations as "persons" is a convenient legal fiction which allows corporations to sue and to be sued, provides a single entity for easier taxation and regulation, simplifies complex transactions that would otherwise involve, in the case of large corporations, thousands of people, and protects the individual rights of the shareholders as well as the right of association.

...
Wikipedia