Court Opinion

ID: 9660413
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 22:12:56.026612+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:19.281945
License: Public Domain

On Petition to Rehear.
BEJACH, J.
Plaintiffs in Error have filed a petition to rehear seeking a reconsideration by this court of our opinion filed December 20, 1961, in which we affirmed the judgment of the lower court.
The petition to rehear sets out that, in our opinion filed December 20, 1961, it is stated that all of the petitioners, the defendants in the lower court, were sued as partners, d/b/a Wamble Trucking Co., and that since no sworn pleading was filed denying the existence of such partnership, the plaintiff (obviously meaning the de-dendant), does not have to offer proof of such partner*170ship, under the provisions of section 24-511 T. C. A. The petition to rehear asserts that, “This court’s statement concerning petitioners being sued as partners is absolute error”, because the original declaration in this cause alleges, “that the truck tractor owned by the defendant, Arnold Garner, and the trailer owned by the defendant, Bobby Maness, were at the time being used by them in a joint venture with the defendant, Robert Wamble, d/b/a Wamble’s Trucking Co.”
It is true that the plaintiff in the lower court, who is now respondent to the petition to rehear, sued the defendants, now petitioners, as members of and participants in a joint venture, instead of labeling that joint venture a partnership. We think this is immaterial. On this subject, we quote from 30 Am. Jur. — Joint Adventures — sec. 4, p. 940, as follows:
“Admittedly, it is difficult to distinguish between jont adventures and partnerships. The relations of the parties to a joint adventure and the nature of their association are so similar and closely akin to a partnership that it is ordinarily held that their rights, duties, and liabilities are to be tested by rules which are closely analogous to, and substantially the same, if not exactly the same, as those which govern partnerships. From the standpoint of the element of mutual agency of the members of a joint adventure, the relationship has often been said to be akin to that of partnership or of partnership for a single transaction. In general, however, it is now understood that the two relationships are not identical, and that decisions defining and describing partnerships are not necessarily controlling upon the *171question of whether parties to a particular contract are joint adventurers. In other words, it is not necessary, in order that there be a joint adventure, that a legal partnership exist.”
Also, from the opinion of our own Supreme Court in Pritchett v. Thomas Plater & Co., 144 Tenn 406, 437, 232 S. W. 961, written by Mr. Justice Hall, we quote as follows:
“The partnership may exist for a single transaction, venture or undertaking. 30 Cyc., 370, 380; 115 Am. St. Rep., 408, note; 18 L. R. A. (N. S.) 1090, note.
“A joint adventure is generally regarded as of a similar nature to that of a partnership and governed by the same rules applicable to partnerships.” Pritchett v. Thomas Plater & Co., 144 Tenn. 437, 232 S. W. 970.
Such being the state of the law on this subject, we think that even if the statement complained of in our former opinion be considered as technically inaccurate, such inaccuracy was immaterial, and a correction of it would not change the result reached in our opinion, nor entitle petitioners to have their petition to rehear granted.
All other questions presented by the petition to rehear were fully covered in the original briefs and arguments presented in open court, and were disposed of by our opinion filed December 20, 1961.
We find no merit in the petition to rehear and same is accordingly denied and overruled.
Carney, J., and Crownover, Special Judge, concur.