Smith v. Kansas Street Improvement Co.

This is an action for contribution. Certain parties joined themselves as partners to speculate in real estate, and contracted to purchase various tracts of land. Thereafter one Green was admitted as a partner upon the payment of one thousand dollars. Certain other contracts of purchase were thereupon entered into. Three of these partners were selected as a committee or board to manage the business affairs of the partnership. About ten days after Green entered the partnership he notified this committee that he desired to withdraw therefrom, and demanded a return of the one thousand dollars he had paid. The committee thereupon paid him one thousand dollars, and he ceased to have anything further to do with the partnership affairs. The remaining partners continued the business, and thereafter took into the firm additional members, and made further purchases of real estate. Subsequently, for the purposes of convenience, these partners formed a corporation, and stock was issued to them in proportion to the amount of capital each had placed in the business. All contracts for the purchase of' land were thereupon assigned to the corporation, and the corporation assumed and agreed" to pay…

I dissent from the order denying a rehearing in this case, not because I disapprove the judgment of affirmance, but because the ground upon which it is placed is not sustained by the record. The findings of the superior court make it clear that considerable losses accrued upon those contracts, as to which the Department opinion concedes that the respondent may have been liable for contribution, but I think the superior court correctly decided upon the facts found, that by his withdrawal from the partnership upon September 19, 1887', Green was released and discharged from all liability to the copartnership.