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13 Vt. 522

Woodworth v. Downer

Supreme Court of Vermont

Decided March 15, 1841

Supreme Court of Vermont · decided 1841-03-15

Assumpsit, in two counts. The first count was as follows ; viz.— ‘ For that the said defendants, at said Randolph, on the c 16th day of January, 1839, having then and for a long c time previously, been partners in trade, under -the firm of e Jonah Washburn &- Company, and being then indebted to ‘ the plaintiff in the sum of two hundred and twenty-one ‘ dollars and forty-six cents, on settlement of various deal- ‘ ings between the plaintiff and defendants, did, by their £…

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1841-03-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 5 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 1914

4 state decisions

2018411850186018701880189019001910decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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¶1The opinion of the court was delivered by

Redfield, J.

¶2It is undoubtedly true,that even after a dissolution of a partnership, the acts and admissions of one of the partners, in regard to the partnership liabilities, are, to some extent, binding upon all the partners. Such admissions of one partner are, undoubtedly, evidence to go to the jury in a joint action against all the partners. It is upon this ground, that such admissions have been considered sufficient to take a case out of the operation of the statute of limitations. Joslyn v. Smith, ante, 353.

¶3*525But it has always been considered, that after the dissolution of the partnership, one of the partners had no implied authority to impose new obligations upon the firm, or to vary the form, or character of those already existing. ¡ Hence it was held in the case of Torrey v. Baxter, ante, 452, where one of the partners assumed to give the partnership note for a pre-existing partnership debt, that the note was merely void, and the creditor might sue, and recover, upon his original demand. The same reason, precisely, will forbid that one of the partners should be allowed to state a partnership account, so as to bind the firm, unless some authority be given him for that purpose, as was done in the case of Averill v. Lyman, 18 Pick. 346. One of the partners has an implied authority to pay the partnership debts ; but not to state accounts on their behalf, or to execute notes. Such is the well established rule in Westminster Hall, and in the American states.

¶4Judgment affirmed.

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