Opinion ID: 2966563
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: pw-us

Text: Lee Piper, Herbert Schulken, and Dennis Goginsky are partners of PW-US, and they reside in South Carolina. PW-US 7 was not involved in the financing, and Young does not allege any wrongdoing by PWUS. Rather, Young contends that we should treat PW-Bahamas and PW-US as a single partnership doing business in South Carolina under the doctrine of partnership by estoppel, which would make PW-US jointly and severally liable for the alleged wrongdoing of PW-Bahamas. The district court converted PW-US's motion to dismiss into a motion for summary judgment because the parties presented evidence on the issue outside of the pleadings. The district court then concluded that no partnership existed in fact between PW-Bahamas and PW-US and that the evidence did not support a finding of partnership by estoppel. The district court, therefore, granted summary judgment to PW-US because Young failed to allege that any member of PW-US participated in preparing the audit report. Under the Uniform Partnership Act, which South Carolina has adopted, a partnership by estoppel arises only where a person, on the faith of a representation of partnership by persons who are not actual _________________________________________________________________ 7 We refer to the PW-US partnership and the three PW-US partners interchangeably as PW-US. 19 partners, give[s] credit to the actual or apparent partnership. S.C. Code Ann. § 33-41-380(1) (Law. Co-op. 1990). Thus, partnership by estoppel arises only where one extends credit to an ostensible partnership in reliance upon a representation of partnership. NCNB Nat'l Bank of N.C. v. Bridgewater Steam Power Co., 740 F. Supp. 1140, 1158 (W.D.N.C. 1990). On appeal, Young concedes that no partnership existed between PW-US and PW-Bahamas in fact. He also admits that none of the PW-US partners participated in preparing the audit report for SAFIG. He contends, however, that the district court erred in holding that he failed to establish partnership by estoppel. Young argues that PW-US holds itself out as a single partnership with offices around the world. In support of his contention, Young submitted a PW-US brochure that his attorney picked up at a litigation services seminar. The brochure describes Price Waterhouse as one of the world's largest and most respected professional organizations with offices throughout the world. Young asserts that the brochure casts Price Waterhouse as an established international accounting firm and that PW-US promotes that image to gain public confidence in the firm's stability and expertise. Young does not, however, contend that he relied on the brochure in making his decision to invest. In fact, although Young requested and received ample opportunity for discovery on the issue, he never offered any evidence that he relied on any representation of PW-US. Furthermore, regardless of whether PW-US made any representation upon which Young relied, no evidence suggests that Young gave credit to anyone, much less to PW-Bahamas or PW-US. See § 3341-380(1). As discussed above, PW-Bahamas does not have a substantial connection with South Carolina. Without such a connection, in personam jurisdiction does not exist over PW-Bahamas unless a basis exists to treat PW-Bahamas and PW-US as a single partnership doing business in South Carolina under the partnership by estoppel doctrine. Since Young failed to establish that he relied on any representation of PWUS or that he gave credit to the alleged partnership, the district court correctly held that a partnership by estoppel did not arise. Therefore, the district court properly dismissed the claims against PW-Bahamas 20 for lack of in personam jurisdiction, and the court properly granted summary judgment to PW-US because Young did not establish any wrongdoing by the PW-US partners.