
In order to better protect the body of water and the ecosystem it supports from pollution, residents of Toledo on the shores of
Lake Erie voted by a sizable margin to great it legal personhood, granting the lake (or some one championing it) the ability to sue (or be sued). The concept of a judicial personality (
persona ficta) has been fraught and arguably
abused in the past with the notion of
lifting the corporate veil and giving businesses the rights, responsibilities and liabilities of the stakeholders (natural persons) but can in some cases be a force of good, this being the first under US jurisdiction.