[d] Sodales legem quam volent, dum ne quid ex publica lege corrumpant, sibi ferunto.
[e] Stat. 19 Hen. VII. c. 7.
There are also certain privileges and disabilities that attend an aggregate corporation, and are not applicable to such as are sole; the reason of them ceasing, and of course the law. It must always appear by attorney; for it cannot appear in person, being, as sir Edward Coke says[f], invisible, and existing only in intendment and consideration of law. It can neither maintain, or be made defendant to, an action of battery or such like personal injuries; for a corporation can neither beat, nor be beaten, in it's body politic[g]. A corporation cannot commit treason, or felony, or other crime, in it's corporate capacity[h]: though it's members may, in their distinct individual capacities. Neither is it capable of suffering a traitor's, or felon's punishment, for it is not liable to corporal penalties, nor to attainder, forfeiture, or corruption of blood[]. It cannot be executor or administrator, or perform any personal duties; for it cannot take an oath for the due execution of the office. It cannot be a trustee; for such kind of confidence is foreign to the ends of it's institution: neither can it be compelled to perform such trust, because it cannot be committed to prison[k]; for it's existence being ideal, no man can apprehend or arrest it. And therefore also it cannot be outlawed; for outlawry always supposes a precedent right of arresting, which has been defeated by the parties absconding, and that also a corporation cannot do: for which reasons the proceedings to compel a corporation to appear to any suit by attorney are always by distress on their lands and goods[l]. Neither can a corporation be excommunicated; for it has no soul, as is gravely observed by sir Edward Coke[m]: and therefore also it is not liable to be summoned into the ecclesiastical courts upon any account; for those courts act only pro salute animae, and their sentences can only be inforced by spiritual censures: a consideration, which, carried to it's full extent, would alone demonstrate the impropriety of these courts interfering in any temporal rights whatsoever.
[f] 10 Rep. 32.
[g] Bro. Abr. tit. Corporation. 63.
[h] 10 Rep. 32.
[] The civil law also ordains that, in any misbehaviour of a body corporate, the directors only shall be answerable in their personal capacity, and not the corporation. Ff. 4. 3. 15.
[k] Plowd. 538.
[l] Bro. Abr. tit. Corporation. 11. Outlawry. 72.
[m] 10 Rep. 32.