21 Mich. 556 | Mich. | 1870
The principal question in this case concerns the meaning of the statute which requires a notice of special partnership to be published in two newspapers in the Senatorial District within which the business is to be carried on, and makes the special partner liable as a general partner, if there shall be any failure to make the requisite publication.
The business in this case was to be carried on in the First ward of the city of Detroit, and a notice thereof in due form was published in two daily newspapers of that city. The offices of those papers, however, were in the Second ward of the city, which was in a different Senatorial District from that which embraced the First ward. If this publication was not sufficient, it is conceded that Earns is liable as a general partner, while if sufficient, he
In endeavoring to ascertain what is meant in this statute by the publication of a newspaper, we have no difficulty in perceiving that it is not the mere printing thereof. Some other act is obviously essential to complete publication. The idea of publication includes the putting the paper in some form before the public. It has its inception with the printing, but it is only completed when the paper • passes from the hands of the publishers into the hands of the public, or of such public agencies as are appointed for the distribution. When a paper is distributed exclusively through the mail, it could not be said to be published until delivery is made at the post-office; and if the edition should bo accidentally destroyed while on its way from the printing-office to the post, .it is quite evident that the printer could not truthfully make affidavit that a legal notice which it contained had been published, nor could one against whom it contained a libelous article maintain an action on the ground that the publication of the libel was complete, notwithstanding no one had yet seen .it. So if the paper is distributed through the agents of the proprietors, it is obvious, whatever may be the legal meaning of the term publication, that the act which it indicates is not complete until the paper reaches the hands of subscribers, or the place where it is to be deposited for their reception. If, therefore, we are to give to the word “published” in the statute the narrow meaning claimed for it on the part of the plaintiffs, and hold that it has reference to the particular spot or building where the publication becomes complete, we should be obliged, we think, to find that place at the post-office in the one case, or the dwelling of the subscriber in the other, rather than, as the plaintiffs
Generally, where-our statutes provide for the publication of notices, they have reference to the geographical divisions into counties, cities, townships and villages; and it is worthy of notice that this statute was passed when there was no division of counties into Senatorial Districts, so that a question like the present could not have been anticipated. Where a statute evidently has such reference, — as in the case of mortgage, execution and tax sales, — there is generally no doubt whatever that the Legislature intend the county, city, township or village, in which the office of publication is located. Within the meaning of these statutes it could not be held that a paper, printed and generally circulated in one county, was also published in the adjoining county because some of its numbers were distributed within it by the regular carriers. But it has never been claimed before, so far as we know, that any of our statutes, in referring to the publication of a newspaper, published in some particular city or township, have had regard to some particular place or building within the city or township as the place of publication, ipstead of treating the whole municipality as one locality for that purpose. There has never been any reason, as far as we are aware, for inquiring into the precise spot of first issue so narrowly; and if any statute requires it, the provision must be accidental rather than designed. Each of the Detroit papers is published, so far as is practicable, in every part of the city at the same time, and by the same agencies; and it would be a distinction without reason to hold that they are published in one ward of the city and not in the others.
The judgment must be affirmed with costs.