Rick Cupp on Legal Personhood - Florida Law Review

Professor Richard L. Cupp’s article, “Cognitively Impaired Human, Intelligent Animals, and Legal Personhood,”(SSRN) 69 Florida Law Review 465 (2017), has been published. The article considers the implications of restructuring the legal system to make animals persons.

Abstract of “Cognitively Impaired Human, Intelligent Animals, and Legal Personhood”:

This Article analyzes whether courts should grant legal personhood to intelligent animal species, such as chimpanzees, with a particular focus on comparisons made to cognitively impaired humans who are recognized as legal persons even though they may have less practical autonomy than intelligent animals. Granting legal personhood would allow human representatives to initiate some legal actions with the animals as direct parties to the litigation, as is presently allowed for humans with cognitive impairments that leave them incapable of representing their own interests. For example, a human asserting to act on behalf of an intelligent animal might seek a writ of habeas corpus to demand release from a restrictive environment where less restrictive environments, such as relatively spacious sanctuaries, are available. Highly publicized litigation seeking legal personhood in a habeas corpus context for chimpanzees is underway in New York, and the lawsuits have garnered the support of some eminent legal scholars and philosophers. Regardless of its short-term success or failure, this litigation represents the beginning of a long struggle with broad and deep societal implications.

The article was also featured in Private Law Theory, at private-law-theory.org, and in Animal Law Update, at animallaw.foxrothschild.com