Or even 1819 if we wish to go from when the SCOTUS ruled corporations to have the same contract rights as persons (which is a far cray from saying they have ALL the legal rights of persons, let alone ARE legal persons.) I know you are the lawyer and may hand me my ass on this one, but it seems kind of odd that we would have had multiple SCOTUS rulings recognizing rights that corporations had already possessed from the birth of the concept of incorporation. Personally, I still think the whole notion that a group of people can get together, take collective actions, then walk away from any negative consequences by disolving the corporation (which is precisely what someone recently did in the course of just a few months when they wished to make a political donation to Mitt Romney that would have been illegal for them as an individual) is rather unjust. I will, however, let that slide for the moment because I am so much more interested in how something a law clerk slipped into the header of SCOTUS ruling a little over a century ago has somehow been around since incorporation was established in law. Though I cannot help wondering if OWS should just legally incorporate itself if it decides to start attacking police offers, then dissolve the corporation if anyone decides to prosecute them.