Social Question

RedDeerGuy1's avatar

Can a corporation be given the death penalty?

Asked by RedDeerGuy1 (24986points) January 10th, 2019

Like if PG&E gets found liable for starting the campsite forest fire in California?

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10 Answers

zenvelo's avatar

No. And they cannot be put in jail.

Darth_Algar's avatar

Only if you’re on the losing side in a war (see: IG Farben).

Jeruba's avatar

But…aren’t they “persons”? Seems like a fair question to me.

GQ.

elbanditoroso's avatar

@Darth_Algar – some of the managers of IG Farben were, in fact, punished. Not executed, but imprisoned and later released.

But the companies and their technology survived.

Agfa, BASF and Bayer remained in business; Hoechst spun off its chemical business in 1999 as Celanese AG before merging with Rhône-Poulenc to form Aventis, which later merged with Sanofi-Synthélabo to form Sanofi. Two years earlier, another part of Hoechst was sold in 1997 to the chemical spin-off of Sandoz, the Muttenz (Switzerland) based Clariant. The successor companies remain some of the world’s largest chemical and pharmaceutical companies.

LadyMarissa's avatar

Corporations are considered entities…NOT people; so they are exempt from much of the law. Personally, I think that the CEO should be held responsible for EVERY infraction that arises!!! I see it as another rich people cop out!!! Is it legal? According to the law…YES. Should it be legal? According to me…NO!!! On the other hand, they can be sued by the victims & the victims will more than likely actually receive a cash settlement…where with a person, they’d owe you fo the rest of their life!!!

kritiper's avatar

They will/can be forced out of business.
We had a situation here where concrete for a certain freeway structure was not found to be up to specs, and the fault was the concrete company that supplied/mixed the concrete. They are no longer in business.

elbanditoroso's avatar

@kritiper but did they go out of business because they ran out of money and nobody bought from them? Or did the court (or city/county) PUT them out of business by revoking some license or permit?

Big difference.

kritiper's avatar

It was because they failed to provide concrete that was specified. It wasn’t because people quit buying from them. All companies involved had been in business for many years. I think they were sued out of existence by the state and other entities.

tranquilsea's avatar

I’ll only consider them people (like the courts want us to) when we can lock them in prison for malfeasance.

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