alt Hacker NewsI was under the impression that one of the key reasons for corporate personhood was explicitly to shield the owner from civil and criminal accountability.
Granted, in extreme cases, there are still ways to pierce the corporate veil and imprison executives for criminal wrongdoing, but that's exceedingly rare.
It's really not that rare for smaller companies. Every two-bit contractor, small landlord who thinks he's smart because he put his properties in an LLC etc. undoubtedly violates the corporate/personal distinction by comingling funds. If an attorney wants to sue Joe The Local Incorporated Contractor, or Alice The Local Slumlord, first thing they're going to do is discovery through a bunch of corporate records- they'll easily find that the owner is mixing personal & corporate cash, credit cards, etc. Takes a good lawyer about 10 minutes