Case ID: edw-ch_3/html/0486-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "The Vice-Chancellor :", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Everitt and others, executors of Watts, v. Watts.
    
      July 15, 1841.
    Dec. 14.
    
      Pleading. Partnership. Negative plea.
    
    A plea denying partnership must be accompanied by an answer as to the circumstances specially charged as evidence of it.
    Bill on an alleged partnership; and the complainant had set out circumstances which were evidence of a partnership.
    The defendant put in a plea denying the partnership ; and a short answer meeting some of the allegations of the bill, but not those which went to evidence a partnership.
    Mr. Bidwell, in support of the complainant.
    Mr. Rolfe, for the complainants.
   The Vice-Chancellor :

This plea, which goes to all the relief prayed for by the bill against the defendant as a copartner and to all the discovery required touching the alleged partnership, by simply denying that any copartnership ever existed between the defendant and the complainants’ testatrix, is defective.

The bill alleges a number of facts as constituting or showing the existence of a partnership, and in regard to which the bill calls for and the complainants are entitled to a discovery, and the case falls within the rule requiring an answer to those facts as an accompaniment to a negative plea. The cases of Sanders v. King, 6 Madd. C. R. 61, and Thring v. Edgar, 2 S. & S. 274, contain the principle and the reasons for it; and the same will be found clearly stated and explained in Story’s Eq. PI. ch. xiii. and more particularly at § 674, 675, (p. 516, 519,) where it is shown that the plea in question should be accompanied by an answer and discovery as to all the circumstances specially charged as evidence of the partnership.

Order, that the defendant have leave to amend his plea in this respect within twenty days and pay the costs, or, in default thereof, that the plea stand overruled, with costs.