The concept of legal personhood for organizations of people is at least as old as Ancient Rome: a variety of collegial institutions enjoyed the benefit under Roman law.
The doctrine has been attributed to Pope Innocent IV, who seems at least to have helped spread the idea of persona ficta as it is called in Latin.
Another effect of this was that, as a fictional person, a monastery could not be held guilty of delict due to not having a soul, helping to protect the organization from non-contractual obligations to surrounding communities.
[7] Since the 19th century, legal personhood has been further construed to make it a citizen, resident, or domiciliary of a state (usually for purposes of personal jurisdiction).
353 (1844), the U.S. Supreme Court held that for the purposes of the case at hand, a corporation is "capable of being treated as a citizen of [the State which created it], as much as a natural person."
[10] The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 16 advocates for the provision of legal identity for all natural persons, including birth registration by 2030 as part of the 2030 Agenda.
Juridical personhood allows one or more natural persons (universitas personarum) to act as a single entity (body corporate) for legal purposes.
In many jurisdictions, artificial personality allows that entity to be considered under law separately from its individual members (for example in a company limited by shares, its shareholders).
The concept of a juridical person is now central to Western law in both common-law and civil-law countries, but it is also found in virtually every other legal system.
The non-human entities given the "legal person" status by the law "have rights and co-relative duties; they can sue and be sued, can possess and transfer property".
Specific non-human entities given the status of "legal person" include "corporate personality, body politic, charitable unions etc," as well as trust estates, deities, temples, churches, mosques, hospitals, universities, colleges, banks, railways, municipalities, and gram panchayats (village councils), rivers, all animals and birds.
Similarly, in 2018 SC decided that the deity Ayyappan is a "legal person" with "the right to privacy" in the court case regarding the entry of women to Sabarimala shrine of Lord Ayyapan.
(ii)" and "Shambhu Charan Shukla vs Thakur Ladli Radha Chandra Madan Gopalji Maharaj, AIR 1985 SC 905 (909): (1985) 2 SCC 524: (1985) 3 SCR 372".
[23] In court cases regarding natural entities, the Uttarakhand High Court, mandated that the river Ganges and Yamuna as well as all water bodies are "living entities" i.e. "legal person" and appointed three humans as trustees to protect the rights of rivers against the pollution caused by the humans, e.g. "pilgrims's bathing rituals".
Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad is sometimes cited for this finding because the court reporter's comments included a statement the Chief Justice made before oral arguments began, telling the attorneys during pre-trial that "the court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations.