2 Concept of Legal Personality

A person, in law, is any being to whom the law regards as capable of rights and duties (Salmond's formulation, echoed by Gray: the "unit of legal rights and duties"). Legal personality is thus a creature of law and not of nature — it is a bundle of capacities: capacity to own property, to contract, to sue and be sued, to hold rights.The concept does philosophical work:• Legal persons need not be "real" persons. A company exists because the Companies Act says it exists. Personality is a legal technique, an umbrella the law holds over an entity.• The number of persons need not match the number of humans. One human may bear several persons (see double capacity below); several humans (or none!) may constitute one person (a corporation).• Personality can be lost, suspended or limited. Outlawry and civil death (historical), insolvency restrictions, minority and insanity (limited capacity) all qualify personality.Why does the device exist? Utility: it lets law organize economic and social life — immortal entities (corporations do not die) can hold property across generations; risk can be channelled (limited liability); collective ventures can act as one. Kelsen's pure-theory gloss: a "person" is simply a personified unity of a bundle of legal norms — the company "is" the set of norms that regulate it.