§ 37.001.Definition

One definition, drawn wide, and its breadth is what lets the chapter work.

"Person" means an individual, partnership, joint-stock company, unincorporated association or society, or municipal or other corporation of any character.

Everything the chapter offers runs to a "person" — the right to have a question of construction or validity determined, the right to obtain a declaration of rights, and the entitlement to be joined where an interest would be affected.

So a narrow definition would have narrowed the whole act.

The unincorporated association is the notable inclusion. A club, a church congregation, a union local or a homeowners’ group has no separate legal existence at common law, and without this such a body could not seek a declaration in its own name.

"Municipal or other corporation of any character" reaches governmental bodies. A city facing a question about the validity of its own ordinance is a person for this chapter, as is any other public corporation.

"Of any character" is the phrase that closes the list. Public or private, for profit or not, domestic or foreign — the form of the corporation does not matter.

The list reads as of its date. A joint-stock company is an old unincorporated form, and a "society" is the language of an earlier century — but the drafting is inclusive rather than exhaustive in effect, and the newer forms fall within it.

Note who is not defined: the state itself. Whether the state can be made a defendant in a declaratory action is a question of immunity rather than of this definition.