Court Opinion

ID: 8635193
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-24 19:44:03.376539+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:55:54.294477
License: Public Domain

WARE, District Judge.
It is not necessary for the petitioner to enumerate in his schedule the particulars of the partnership effects. The decree of bankruptcy operates as a dissolution of the partnership, and the assignee becomes tenant in common with the solvent partner. The joint tenancy is destroyed. Between tenants in common of chattels, it is generally true that each owner is equally entitled to the possession, and one tenant in common cannot maintain trespass! or trover against the other for dispossessing him, though for the loss or destruction of the whole chattel trespass will lie. 2 Kent, Comm. 350, 351, note. But it is otherwise in the case of a tenancy in common supervening on the dissolution of a partnership, by the death or bankruptcy of one of the partners. In this case the joint property remains in the hands of the surviving or solvent partner, clothed with a trust to be applied by him to the discharge of the partnership obligations, and to account to the representatives of the deceased, or of the bankrupt jjartner, for his share of the surplus. He can enter into no new partnership engagement, but his whole authority is limited to the settling and closing the partnership concerns. 3 Kent, Comm. 59. Story, Partn. §§ 1, 328,, 341, 407. The right of the assignee is not, therefore, to the possession of the partnership effects, but to an account and to the bankrupt’s share of the surplus, after the debts of the firm are paid. And it would seem that ordinarily he had no right to interfere with the administration of the effects of the firm. If there is any danger of a waste or mis-application of the common funds, he may call for an injunction and the appointment of a receiver, or the court might direct him to take the administration into his own hands. Story, Partn. § 344. Indeed, in the absence of the solvent partner, the rule is said to be that the as-signee shall take the joint property and deal with it as the partner himself ought to have dealt with it, paying the joint debts and applying the surplus according to the equities subsisting between the partners themselves. Barker v. Goodair, 11 Ves. 85, 86. If the administration of the effects is to be with the solvent partner, subject to an account, it seems to me to be unnecessary to enumerate in detail those effects in the schedule. It will be more convenient to do that hereafter, when, in the subsequent proceedings in bankruptcy, the matter goes before a commissioner to take the account. This seems to me to be the most convenient rule, and in most cases will be most beneficial for all parties. At the same time, it is perhaps not easy to state precisely to what extent the power of the solvent partner over the joint property is affected by the bankruptcy of his co-partner. Eden Bankr. 252, 264. Brickwood v. Miller, 3 Mer. 279. But the petitioner has only stated generally in his schedule, his interest in the partnership property, without stating what his proportion is. In that respect it is defective.
The schedule was afterwards amended in this particular, and on a subsequent day a decree passed.