118 N.Y.S. 478 | N.Y. Sup. Ct. | 1909
This is a petition praying for the issuance of a writ of mandamus directed to the defendant herein, requiring Mm, as clerk of the Second District Municipal Court, borough of Manhattan, to file with the records of said court a certain satisfaction of judgment, to mark upon the docket of judgments kept in his office a satisfaction thereof, and to issue to the relators herein a certificate. of satisfaction of said judgment. The material facts are as follows: An action was brought in the Municipal Court under the title “ Isaac Albert, Hyman Bernstein and Louis Albert, copartners, doing business as the Excelsior Oork Works, plaintiff, against Benjamin Immerman, Isaac Imnierman and Isaac Bathkowsky, defendants.” After a trial had on November 23, 1908, the plaintiffs recovered a judgment against the defendants for the sum of sixty-three dollars and twenty-five cents. The defendants duly appealed from said judgment, and while the appeal was pending Hyman Bernstein, one of the persons named in the action as one of the plaintiffs, and one of the defendants, entered into negotiations which resulted in the payhfent by said defendant to said Bernstein of the sum of forty dollars in full for the amount of said judgment. Prior to such payment a
The foregoing statement of facts appears in the moving papers, and in addition thereto Hyman Bernstein makes oath that “ he was and still is a copartner in the business carried on by him and his coplaintiffs under the name and style of the Excelsior Cork Works; that such copartnership has never been dissolved and is still in existence.” He also testifies that he executed the satisfaction piece aforesaid in good
If we assume that in the case at bar the partnership had been dissolved prior to the execution of the satisfaction piece by Bernstein it would not alter the legal situation disclosed herein. In the absence of an agreement that, a particular partner shall liquidate the firm’s affairs, each partner, even after dissolution, has power to receive payment of debts and give receipts and releases therefor (30 Cyc. 663), and this is so even where a power of attorney is given generally to one of the partners authorizing him to close up the partnership business. Napier v. McLeod, 9 Wend. 120. The instrument presented to the deputy clerk of the Municipal Court was fair on its face, proper in form, and, as before stated, it was signed and executed by one of the persons named in the preceding proceedings in the action as one of the coplaintiffs and copartners. It appears to nave been properly filed by the deputy clerk. The clerk, attempting to assume judicial functions, and to declare that the instrument was improper or irregular, indorsed thereon the words “ do not file.” These words are of no consequence; they do not affect the validity of the filing in any way. Had they been erased another situation would have been presented. As it stands now the instrument is on file, and properly so. The clerk, also, it appears, erased from the judgment docket words that had properly been written there to indicate that the judgment had been satisfied. This he had no authority
Ordered accordingly.