19 Pa. 516 | Pa. | 1853
The opinion of the Court was delivered, by
This case presents so few salient points that it is difficult to deal with it; yet it rests on principles and analogies that may conduct the mind to a satisfactory conclusion. At the formation of a partnership, its dissolution by death is rarely contemplated. It is an unwelcome subject; for no man who enters on a speculation can bear to think he may not live to finish it. Hence the contract is usually framed for operations during the proposed period; and when the parties anticipate the expiration of it, they dispose of the unfinished business by a new arrangement. Consequently in articles or a parol contract of partnership, there is seldom, if ever, an express provision for a case like the present; and where compensation is not allowed a surviving partner by a commercial custom, the contract, based on the law of partnership, binds him by an implied covenant or promise to
Added to these considerations, it is of irresistible force, that the reported cases afford no precedent for such an allowance; and that Miller v. Anspach, in the District Court of Philadelphia, is the only one in which it was even claimed. If there had been a commercial custom to give color to it, it would have appeared in some of the decrees on bills to account. But analogous cases throw a strong light on the matter. It sometimes happens that a surviving
At first view it might seem unjust, that a co-operator should contribute more than his share to the success of an enterprise without remuneration for the excess; but his share depends on the nature of the bargain. By the contract of association, every partner is bound to work to the extent of his ability for the benefit of the whole, without regard to the services of his copartners, and without comparison of values; for services to the firm cannot,
Judgment afiirmed.
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