The way that I imagine corporate personhood in my head is as a call centre. I analogize corporate personality with call centres because they likewise act as a buffer between the owners and managers and the people being affected by the actions of the corporation.
I worked at a large call centre throughout undergrad and I always felt that we (the customer service reps) acted as a shield between the customers and the management and owners of the company. Huge companies like Telus, Shaw, Bell, and FedEx, have resorted to using call centres that assist their customers in everything related to their products. It is part of modern life to engage with these entities. But as anybody who has spent more hours trying to get “assistance” over the phone can probably recount, the experience is often useless because the customer service reps don’t care about your problems, and because they can’t really do anything to help you.
In Transamerica Life Insurance, the Court found that they will disregard the separate corporate legal personality of a corporate entity where it is completely dominated and controlled and being used as a shield for fraudulent or improper conduct. It is then imperative to define what fraudulent and improper conduct.
Customers and clients see improper all the time. From the WiFi consumer who pays for his or her bill every month and still takes an hour to stream Friends on Netflix, to the person who spent $50,000 to buy a timeshare to spend Christmas in Whistler every year and has only been once, to the illegal immigrant in the U.S. who can’t pick up his package from FedEx because he does not have the required “government issued” photo ID. But how do you take improper to the eyes of the court?
Paranoid and not so paranoid customers and consumers see fraudulent actions all the time as well. We see the repercussions in the environment, in the creation of business structures that hook you with suave emails and small print and end up charging your credit card monthly fees of $9.99 until you die or until your credit card expires.
The question that I ask myself is, how will the courts define fraudulent and improper conduct when companies are one step ahead of them? How do we, as consumers avoid getting gypped?
*Old post but adding to get my badge!
Claudia that is a really good analogy. I too think that it is imperative that statute or the courts define what is considered fraudulent and improper conduct when it comes to piercing the corporate veil.
It is true that customers are clients see improper all the time. Sadly, I feel that a lot of people see improper conduct by companies so often that they have become accustomed to it and allow the companies to get away with it. I have head many incidents of improper conduct by companies and have heard people say “well ill just never do business with them again”. Unfortunately, this does not protect the people that come in after them and perpetuates the problem. I would hope that one day consumers will gain greater protection either through statute or case law.