partnership
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 337 U.S. 733 - Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. Culbertson · 1949Most cited · 2,542 citing opinions
a partnership is created 'when persons join together their money, goods, labor, or skill for the purpose of carrying on a trade, profession, or business and when there is community of interest in the profits and losses
How the Supreme Court has restated “partnership”
Each Supreme Court definition of “partnership,” sized by how often later courts cited it. “Change” is measured by wording overlap with earlier definitions — a rough signal, not a semantic judgment.
How often courts cite the cases defining “partnership”
Court decisions citing the 5 opinions that defined “partnership” — 4,832 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining cases as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.
All 5 definitions, chronological · 1789–1949
- ORIGINAL
There can be no doubt that in the course of trade, the act of one partner, is the act of both. There is a virtual authority to that purpose, mutually given by entering into partnership; and in every thing that relates to their usual dealings, each must be considered as the attorney of the other. But this principle cannot be extended further, to embrace objects out of the course of trade. It does not authorize one to execute a deed for the other; this does not result from their connection as partners.
mutual agency in
a voluntary contract between two or more competent persons, to place their money, effects, labor, and skill, or some one or all of them, in lawful commerce or business, with the understanding that there shall be a communion of the profits thereof between them
a partnership may be adjudged a bankrupt as a separate entity without reference to the bankruptcy of the individual partners
bankruptcy adjudication
A partnership is generally said to be created when persons join together their money, goods, labor, or skill for the purpose of carrying on a trade, profession, or business and when there is community of interest in the profits and losses.