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23 Minn. 6

Sullivan v. Murphy

Supreme Court of Minnesota

Decided May 2, 1876

Supreme Court of Minnesota · decided 1876-05-02

Appeal by defendants from an order of the district court for Hennepin county refusing a new trial, the action having been tried before Vanderburgh, J., without a jury. argued that the Gen. St. c. 34, title 2, does not authorize the corporations organized thereunder to issue commercial paper, citing Rochester Ins. Co. v. Martin, 13 Minn. 59 ; Bank of Augusta v. Earle, 13 Peters, 519, 587.

Relies on Goetz v. Foos

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1876-05-02

How this case has been cited

Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently July 1908

6 state decisions

301876188018901900decided

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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Gileillan, C. J.

¶1Action to recover the amount of a promissory note given to plaintiffs by a corporation created under Gen. St. c. 34, title 2, called the Trades Manufacturing Company. It is alleged by the plaintiffs, and found .by the court below, that the corporation transferred all its property to defendants, upon their undertaking and promise to assume and pay all its debts. The case made does not purport to contain all the evidence, and, therefore, we cannot consider whether the findings of fact are sustained by the evidence.

¶2*7The admissions of Ira T. Murphy, of the fact of the partnership between himself and the other defendant, though they would not of themselves be sufficient to prove the partnership as to the other defendant, were proper evidence of it against him.

¶3The promise of defendants, made to the corporation, to assume and pay its debts, is an original undertaking, and not a collateral one, and, therefore, not within the statute of frauds. Goetz v. Foos, 14 Minn. 265, and cases cited.

¶4The statute under which this corporation was incorporated authorizes, by implication at least, the corporations contemplated by it to create debts in the ordinary transaction of their business ; and, since the old rule that a corporation can only contract under its corporate seal has been relaxed so as not to apply to contracts in the daily and ordinary transaction of its business, there is no reason why such debts may not be evidenced by promissory notes. The note in question was, therefore, valid.

¶5Order affirmed.

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