Stokes v. Anderson

Appeal from the Third Judicial District, County of Ala-meda, California.

Judgment for Plaintiffs. Defendants appeal.

The facts- are stated in the opinion of the Court.

The partnership creditors must in any event, be first paid from the partnership assets before the creditor of an individual partner. (Chase v. Steel, 9 Cal. 64; Bmpee-r. Burn, 22 Id. 194; Collins v. Hood, 4 McLean, 186; Cooler. Banh, TJ. S. 3 Cranch. 95.)

Tbe defendant in an attachment suit must be alleged to be the owner of the goods seized. (Richardson v. Smith, 29 Cal. 529.)

The contract of each partner will bind his copartners, where it falls within the scope of the partnership business. (1 Parsons on Contracts, 156, 157.)

When plaintiffs bought out one partner, what did they buy? Simply the individual interest of the partner, subject to the payment of the partnership debts; therefore plaintiffs took nothing by their purchase, for they but placed .themselves in the selling partner’s shoes. It would be different if the sale had been for cash, and the purchaser not chargeable with fraud, but in this case plaintiffs (respondents) took the partnership grain in payment of the private debt of one of the partners to them, and were necessarily not purchasers in good faith. The creditors of the firm show partnership debts due them, and that at the time of the sale by Neuart to plaintiffs in payment of his precedent debt, the partnership was insolvent — and this is the gist of the-case — and is, in substance all there is in it.