Does a Corporation Count as a Person for Carpool Lanes?

[andy3175]

Please see the following article for an unusual take on carpool lane laws and what constitutes a "person," at least in California ...

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/05/16372432-california-man-says-he-can-drive-in-carpool-lane-with-corporation-papers?lite

When Jonathan Frieman of San Rafael, Calif., was pulled over for driving alone in the carpool lane, he argued to the officer that, actually, he did have a passenger. He waved his corporation papers at the officer, he told NBCBayArea.com, saying that corporations are people under California law. ... In an opinion piece posted to the San Rafael Patch site on May 14, 2011, Frieman broke down his argument. A carpool lane is two or more persons per vehicle, he said. The definition of person in California's Vehicle Code is "natural person or corporation."

Regards,
Andy

[vdeane]

If having corporate papers in your car is the same as having a corporation in your car, than having someone's birth certificate in the car is the same as having them in the car.

[wxfree]

That's an interesting question.  A birth certificate certifies that a person exists, or did exist at one time.  It is external to personhood itself.  No one would argue that a person does not exist on the basis that he does not have a birth certificate.

A corporation is a legal person, in a sense, a "paper person."  It's a person that exists because of a piece of paper.  While a birth certificate is not a charter, a corporate charter is one; it's what makes that particular person exist.  This is similar to the way a living body is what makes a human person exist.

While the argument is, on its face, absurd, I'd say it's at least feasible under the way the law is written.  If we don't follow the laws as written, then what value is there in writing them?

[Mr Downtown]

But how exactly is the statute written?  Chances are the sign says occupants rather than persons.

From the California Vehicle Code:

21655.5.   (b) The Department of Transportation and local authorities... shall place
and maintain... signs and other official traffic control devices to ... advise motorists of the applicable vehicle
occupancy levels... . No person shall drive a vehicle upon those lanes except in conformity with the
instructions imparted by the official traffic control devices... .

[NE2]

http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d11/vc21655_5.htm seems to be the main law about HOV lanes: "No person shall drive a vehicle upon those lanes except in conformity with the instructions imparted by the official traffic control devices."
These are the signs specified by the California MUTCD:

So "persons" is definitely the applicable word.

[wxfree]

edit: the previous reply is clearly superior and makes mine obsolete

[oscar]

For purposes of a sign that requires more than one "person per vehicle", does the Ford Motor Company count as a vehicle's "person" in F-150s, or even in my Toyota?  Corporations exist everywhere (at least in states where they do business, like Ford in California), not just in their corporate paperwork, so whether or not a vehicle carries that paperwork ought not make a difference.

[wxfree]

For purposes of a sign that requires more than one "person per vehicle", does the Ford Motor Company count as a vehicle's "person" in F-150s, or even in my Toyota?  Corporations exist everywhere (at least in states where they do business, like Ford in California), not just in their corporate paperwork, so whether or not a vehicle carries that paperwork ought not make a difference.

Unless there's a law or legal principle indicating corporate omnipresence, I'd say that's a difficult argument to make.  But speaking of omnipresence, why not claim God as an occupant?  They can't prove it isn't true.

[corco]

An F-150 is made by Ford- it would not exist if Ford did not exist, so it cannot be Ford. If you produce something, the thing you produced is not you- it's something you produced.

When did Ford come into existence? Probably when Henry filed the corporate charter, which would make that the moment of Ford's inception.

I didn't exist until my body existed, theoretically, and a corporation doesn't exist until it exists on paper. I suppose if he indeed had the original corporate filings, and not a photocopy of it,  then that would be the body of the corporation.

If it's actually the process of filing the corporate charter that gives a corporation life, then I don't think it's possible to physically manifest the corporation- presumably if the records hall containing the corporate charter burnt down, the corporation would still exist. If I burn down, I would cease to exist.

I guess you end up going back to the unanswerable questions then- if life begins at conception, then the corporation could have existed as soon as something was written down on paper regarding its existence, and maybe that's its physical form. If life begins at birth (i.e. when the corporation came into legal existence), I'm not exactly sure how it would physically manifest itself.

[oscar]

For purposes of a sign that requires more than one "person per vehicle", does the Ford Motor Company count as a vehicle's "person" in F-150s, or even in my Toyota?  Corporations exist everywhere (at least in states where they do business, like Ford in California), not just in their corporate paperwork, so whether or not a vehicle carries that paperwork ought not make a difference.

Unless there's a law or legal principle indicating corporate omnipresence, I'd say that's a difficult argument to make.  But speaking of omnipresence, why not claim God as an occupant?  They can't prove it isn't true.

Yup.  That takes my reductio ad absurdum to a higher plane.

[Scott5114]

Someone sued God in Nebraska once. The judge managed deftly shut it down by stating it was impossible to deliver the summons to Him. I would imagine something like that would be used if you tried to claim God was the second person.

A corporation, though, legally exists as a person, the HOV lane says two persons, so it seems like one of those legal absurdities that sometimes arise with disparate laws not intended to apply to one another end up conflicting. It would be interesting to see what a judge would say.

[jeffandnicole]

Unless he had the absolute original papers for the corporation, a copy of the paperwork is just as much a person as a blowup doll is to a real human. 

[hbelkins]

Blowup dolls count as two people in Alanland's HOV lanes.

[agentsteel53]

how would the corporation go about getting the right to vote once it turned 18?

(insert here your favorite Citizens United joke)

[1995hoo]

(In case the image doesn't display: http://coachrandom.zzl.org/Chronological/comic-333.xml )

[J N Winkler]

A corporation, though, legally exists as a person, the HOV lane says two persons, so it seems like one of those legal absurdities that sometimes arise with disparate laws not intended to apply to one another end up conflicting. It would be interesting to see what a judge would say.

I think the judge would throw out the case very quickly on the basis that riding in automobiles is not something a corporation, or any other type of juridical person, can do.  As others have already pointed out, the paperwork that documents the legal existence of a corporation is not the same as the corporation itself.  Corporate personhood is not vested in any physical copy of the articles of association; it is filing of those papers with the companies regulator in a given state (plus the timely filing of any accounts and other periodic returns that may be legally required) that gives a corporation its legal existence.  No-one can "breed" a corporation or split it into multiple juridical persons just by running the paperwork through a photocopier.

I am confident enough that the case can be dealt with using the reasoning above that I would not even recommend that the California legislature amend the relevant CVC provisions to restrict them to physical persons.

[hbelkins]

I was cracking a joke about the blowup doll and Alanland, but I have heard of drivers being cited for using a mannequin or other device in an attempt to get around the HOV restrictions. I would think this would only happen if the driver had been stopped for another reason, as I have my doubts that anyone could determine that an "occupant" of a car wasn't really a person if the vehicle was traveling at highway speeds.

[Scott5114]

Obviously then, the solution is to put a folded-up corporate charter inside a blow-up doll to form your second person.

[Road Hog]

Unless said corporation had HOV Lane Boy's back, good luck fighting this. The spirit of the law will beat the letter of the law, I'm thinking.

[myosh_tino]

Listening to the radio this evening and apparently this guy drove in the carpool lane intentionally so he would get a ticket.  His plan is appeal his case as far as the California Supreme Court to make a point about how silly the U.S. Supreme Court's decision of the Citizens United case is.

Marin Carpool Lane Violator Says Corporation Counts As Passenger from KCBS Radio/S.F.

[wxfree]

A corporate charter - the original, not a copy - is just like a living body in that it essentially defines the existence of a person.  I think it's silly, but it does seem to be the way the law is written, and the letter of the law has great weight.

You never know what a judge will do, but if I were the judge I might be inclined to dismiss the case, because of the wording of the statute and because it's a simple traffic ticket and not a rape conviction being overturned due to a law that needs to be reworded (http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/04/justice/california-1872-rape-law/index.html).  The words must mean something; otherwise written statutes have no meaning.

[rickmastfan67]

He lost.

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/08/16403757-judge-rejects-california-mans-argument-that-corporation-is-a-passenger

[wxfree]

He lost.

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/08/16403757-judge-rejects-california-mans-argument-that-corporation-is-a-passenger

Not a surprising outcome, but I'm disappointed that the judge applied his guess as to the law's intent rather than interpreting the way it's written.  If words outweigh rape, it's difficult to argue that they don't outweigh lane usage.  While the rape case was decided by an appeals court and will be set for trial again, an acquittal in this case would set a strange precedent since there could be no retrial.  Pragmatically, it may be most prudent to send this to an appeals court, which can order a retrial without setting a precedent.

[oscar]

He lost.

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/08/16403757-judge-rejects-california-mans-argument-that-corporation-is-a-passenger

Not a surprising outcome, but I'm disappointed that the judge applied his guess as to the law's intent rather than interpreting the way it's written.  If words outweigh rape, it's difficult to argue that they don't outweigh lane usage.  While the rape case was decided by an appeals court and will be set for trial again, an acquittal in this case would set a strange precedent since there could be no retrial.  Pragmatically, it may be most prudent to send this to an appeals court, which can order a retrial without setting a precedent.

He wasn't interpreting the law's intent, he was interpreting the intent of the HOV signs and their rules, in the only reasonable way (in that context, a "person" occupying a vehicle is limited to natural persons).  Context matters, and it is not unusual that even within one statute, a word's meaning changes as context requires.

I think the rape case you mentioned is a different kind of case, where one form of rape ("rape by impersonation") is in California for now plainly limited to people impersonating the victim's husband, and under the strict interpretation required for criminal statutes, there was no room to fudge that.  The state legislature might well fix that for future cases, but in the meantime the court ordered the defendant to be retried, so a jury could decide whether the other rape law he was charged under would apply (the court found that the conviction might stand up under the other law, but a jury would have to make the call on that).

[seicer]

He lost.

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/08/16403757-judge-rejects-california-mans-argument-that-corporation-is-a-passenger

Which is what he wanted. There was another article that made the reference he wanted to bring this up to the Supreme Court. Up the ladder he goes.