Case Name: Lime Rock Fire & Marine Insurance Company vs. Edwin P. Treat & another
Court: Maine Supreme Judicial Court
Jurisdiction: Maine
Decision Date: 1870
Citations: 58 Me. 415
Docket Number: 
Parties: Lime Rock Fire & Marine Insurance Company vs. Edwin P. Treat & another.
Judges: Appleton, C. J.; Cutting, Kent, and Daneorth, JJ., concurred.
Reporter: Maine Reports
Volume: 58
Pages: 415–416

Head Matter:
Lime Rock Fire & Marine Insurance Company vs. Edwin P. Treat & another.
Copartnership — not hound hy one partner’s signing firm, name to premium note for insurance upon Ms individual property.
One partner cannot kind Ms firm by signing tkeir name to a, renewal note of a premium note given by suck partner in the name of tlio firm for a policy of insurance upon his individual property.
On report.
Assumpsit on a promissory note signed E. P. Treat & Co., and on the original account for which the note was given, which bore date more than six years earlier than the date of the writ.
D. N. Mortland, for the plaintiffs.
N. H. Hubbard, for Henry Treat.

Opinion:
Dickerson, J.
Assumpsit on a promissory note signed "E. P. Treat & Co." E. P. Treat has been defaulted, and the plaintiffs claim to hold Henry Treat liable on the note, as a copartner in the firm of E. P. Treat & Co.
The note in suit was given in payment of a note dated in 1862, and signed E. P. Treat & Co., and in settlement of certain other matters of account. The signature to both notes is in the handwriting of E. P. Treat.
Henry Treat testifies that he was a copartner of E. P. Treat from the fall of 1857 to the summer of 1864, but not when the note in suit was given. The consideration of the first note was the premium for insuring the brig, "E. P. Treat," which was owned in part by the defendants in equal proportions, and in their individual capacity. As the brig constituted no part of the copartnership property, neither of the copartners had a right, as such, to sign the copartnership name to the premium note, and thereby bind the firm; nor could either of the copartners bind the firm by giving a renewal note in the copartnership name.
The plaintiffs cannot recover on their account annexed, because it is barred by the statute of limitations. According to the agreement of the parties the entry must be, Plaintiffs nonsuit.
Appleton, C. J.; Cutting, Kent, and Daneorth, JJ., concurred.