Ownership and Concept of Personality | Jurisprudence - CLAT PG PDF Download

Ownership

Ownership is a complex legal concept that refers to the relationship between a person and the rights vested in them. It is often described as a "bundle of rights" and can be categorized into different types. Here are the key distinctions:

Corporeal and Incorporeal Ownership

• Corporeal Ownership: This refers to the ownership of tangible material objects, such as a house, table, land, or machinery. Corporeal things are those that can be felt by the senses.
• Incorporeal Ownership: This pertains to the ownership of rights, such as copyright, patent, trademark, or right of way. Incorporeal things are intangible and cannot be felt by the senses.
• Salmond argues that the distinction between corporeal and incorporeal ownership is primarily theoretical, as ownership in both cases involves the right vested in the owner, not the material object itself.

Sole Ownership and Co-ownership

• Sole Ownership: This occurs when ownership is vested in a single person.
• Co-ownership: This happens when ownership is shared by more than one person. Examples of co-ownership include "tenants in common" and "joint tenants" in English law. In India, the Hindu coparcenary is also a form of co-ownership.
• Co-ownership requires legal provisions to harmonize the conflicting claims of different owners. There is an existence of reciprocal obligation of restricted use and enjoyment between co-owners.

Trust Ownership and Beneficial Ownership

• Trust Ownership: This concept, rooted in English equity, involves two or more sets of owners. One set, the trustee, is obligated to use its ownership for the benefit of another set, the beneficiary. The trustee holds legal ownership but cannot use the property for personal benefit.
• Beneficial Ownership: This refers to the rights of the beneficiary in a trust arrangement. The trustee's role is to protect the rights and interests of individuals who cannot protect them themselves.
• Professor Campbell suggests using the term "bare ownership" instead of trust ownership to emphasize the trustee's limited rights.

Legal and Equitable Ownership

• Legal Ownership: This is recognized by the courts of common law and originates from common law rules.
• Equitable Ownership: This is acknowledged by the courts of equity and arises from equitable principles.
• Legal and equitable ownership can be held by different individuals simultaneously. For example, one person may be the legal owner while another is the equitable owner of the same property or right.

Vested and Contingent Ownership

• Vested Ownership: This occurs when the owner's title is already perfect and unconditional. The property is owned absolutely without any conditions.
• Contingent Ownership: This type of ownership is conditional and involves an imperfect title that can become perfect in the future upon the fulfillment of certain conditions. The investitive facts are incomplete but may be completed in the future.
• Contingent ownership indicates that the property is owned conditionally until the required condition is fulfilled, at which point it becomes complete or vested.

Understanding Personality in Law

• Personality in law refers to the unique attributes of human behavior and characteristics that are considered to be fundamental to mankind. This concept also encompasses the capacity for reason and choice, which distinguishes humans from animals. 
• While animals do not possess these attributes, various corporations and entities, as part of society, are also subject to laws and regulations. Therefore, the law grants them personality, making them persons in the eyes of the law.
• A person, for legal purposes, is defined as any being to whom the law attributes the capability of having interests, rights, acts, and duties. There are two types of persons:

Natural Persons

• A natural person is an individual or human being who possesses their own unique personality.

Legal Persons

• A legal person is any entity to which the law attributes a legal or fictitious personality. This extension of personality beyond actual individuals is a significant achievement of legal thought, recognizing entities that are not human as legal persons.

Legal Status of Lower Animals

• Only human beings are considered natural persons under the law. Animals, on the other hand, are not recognized as persons but rather as things. While animals can be the objects of legal rights and duties, they cannot be subjects of them. Their actions are not lawful or unlawful, and they do not have legal rights or duties because their interests are not acknowledged by the law.
• The law is designed for humans and does not recognize any legal relationship or obligations between humans and lower animals.
• There are, however, two instances where animals may be considered to have legal rights. Firstly, cruelty to animals is a criminal offense, and secondly, a trust established for the benefit of a class of animals, such as a home for stray or sick animals, is valid and enforceable as a public and charitable trust.

Legal Status of Dead Persons

• Once a person dies, they are no longer considered a legal person in the eyes of the law. With their death, they lose their legal personality and are devoid of rights and liabilities. They have no rights because they have no interests, as there is nothing that concerns them anymore.
• However, there are exceptions to this rule. The law still recognizes certain interests of deceased individuals, such as their body, reputation, and estate. It is illegal to defame a dead person or to desecrate their graves. Additionally, the estates of deceased individuals must be disposed of according to their wills.

Juristic Personality

• Definition: A corporation is an artificial entity created by a group of individuals with the purpose of conducting business. It is considered an artificial person and is granted legal personality through legal provisions.
• Legal Recognition: The concept of corporate personality is recognized in both English and Indian law. A corporation, as a legal person, has rights, duties, and the capacity to hold property.
• Corporate Members: The individuals forming the corporation are referred to as corporate members. The juristic personality of a corporation requires three essential conditions:
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• There must be a group of human beings associated for a specific purpose.
• The corporation must have organs through which it functions.
• Legal fiction attributes a will or animus to the corporation.

Creation and Extinction of Corporations

• Creation: The establishment of legal persons, such as corporations, is determined by law rather than nature. They come into existence at the will of the law and endure as long as the law permits. Corporations can be created through various means, including royal charter, statute, custom, or agreement of members.
• Extinction: The dissolution of a corporation, or its extinction, occurs when the legal bond uniting its members is severed. Unlike natural persons, legal persons do not lose their existence with the destruction of their physical form. A corporation can continue to exist even if its last member dies, and a corporation sole remains dormant, not extinct, between two occupants of the office.
• The essence of a corporation lies in its fictitious and legal personality, not in the physical presence of its members.

Theories of juristic Personality

Fiction Theory

• Proposed by Savigny and elaborated by Salmond, Coke, Blackstone, and Holland.
• According to this theory, legal personality is assigned to corporations, institutions, and funds through a legal fiction.
• There are two fictions involved:
• First Fiction: The corporation is granted a legal entity.
• Second Fiction: The corporation is endowed with the will of an individual person.
• Savigny viewed the corporation as a creation of law, with no existence apart from its members.
• Salmond argued that a corporation is distinct from its members and can survive beyond them.

Realist Theory

• Propounded by Gierke, a German jurist, and supported by others like Maitland and Beseler.
• Suggests that every group has a real mind, will, and power of action, which transcends the individual members.
• Argues that groups, whether social or political, possess their own distinct personality and will.

Concession Theory

• Linked to the philosophy of the sovereign state.
• Holds that the only real entities are the sovereign and the individual, with legal personality conferred by law.
• Juristic personality is a concession granted to corporations by the state, emphasizing the state's discretion in recognizing a corporation as a legal person.
• Similar to the fiction theory in that it denies juristic personality to members of the corporation.

Purpose Theory

• Advocated by Brinz and supported by others like E.I. Bekker and Aloys.
• Based on the principle that corporations can be treated as persons for specific purposes.
• Argues that only living persons can have rights and duties, necessitating the attribution of personality to corporations for legal purposes.
• Duguit interpreted the theory as law's endeavor to achieve social solidarity through protecting groups pursuing socially beneficial purposes.

Bracket Theory

• Also known as the Symbolist theory, associated with lhering.
• Legal personality is seen as a symbol to facilitate the functioning of corporate bodies.
• Members of a corporation have certain rights and duties, and the corporation serves as a convenient unit for carrying out business transactions.

Hoffield's Theory

• Corporate personality is viewed as a creation of arbitrary legal rules to facilitate legal proceedings involving incorporated bodies.
• Hoffield argued that only human beings are persons, and juristic personality is a procedural form representing many individuals.
• Corporate personality is a means of managing mass individual relationships, simplifying legal processes.

Personality of the State

• The state is the greatest form of human society, owning immense wealth and performing functions beyond those of other associations.
• The legal personality of the state is often assessed through the personality of the king under English law.
• Public property is considered the property of the king, and public liabilities are those of the king.
• The state acts through the king, who is both a natural person and a body politic (corporation sole).
• When the king dies, the rights and liabilities of the state pass to his successors, not to his heirs.
• The crown, rather than the king, is often referred to in legal contexts, but the legal person is the body corporate constituted by the series of persons wearing the crown.