Beauregard v. Smith

• Decision Date: 07 January 1927
• Citation: 258 Mass. 219
• Parties: NOEL BEAUREGARD v. MICHAEL SMITH.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

258 Mass. 219

NOEL BEAUREGARD v. MICHAEL SMITH.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

January 7, 1927

November 17, 1926.

Present: RUGG, C.

J., BRALEY, CROSBY PIERCE, & SANDERSON, JJ.

Partnership, Rights of purchaser of partnership assets at receiver's sale.

The purchaser, from a receiver appointed by a court of equity to sell a business formerly carried on by a partnership, of "all the right title and interest of" one of the partners, who had assumed control of the partnership property, "in and to his business conducted under the name of" the partnership "including the machinery, equipment, stock in trade, raw materials, manufactured articles, and good will of said business," where it appears that at all times after the beginning of the partnership the business had been conducted upon real estate held under a tenancy at will cannot maintain a suit in equity to oust from the real estate the partner who had remained in possession of it and had been allowed by the landlord "to continue as a tenant," or to compel the landlord to accept the plaintiff as tenant.

BILL IN EQUITY filed in the Superior Court on June 24, 1925, by the purchaser at a receiver's sale of a business of harness making and repairing formerly carried on by the defendant and one Lillian M. Clark at 586 Albany Street in Boston, seeking (1) that an interlocutory decree be entered enjoining the defendant Smith from engaging in the business of harness making and repairing at the shop now occupied by him at 586 Albany Street in the city of Boston, until further order of the court; (2) that an interlocutory decree be entered enjoining the defendant from doing any act preventing or tending to prevent the plaintiff from making arrangements with the landlord of said shop to become a tenant therein until further order of the court; and (3) that defendant be ordered to deliver up the possession of said shop at 586 Albany Street to the plaintiff.

The suit was heard upon agreed facts by Morton, J. Besides the facts stated in the opinion, it appeared that the premises at 586 Albany Street in Boston were "under the control of the Metropolitan Coal Company which has always been a very substantial customer of the harness business in question, giving to said business regularly, more than enough work to pay the rent of said premises. The proper representative of said coal company stated that the defendant was a satisfactory tenant and did the work given him by said coal company in a satisfactory manner, and that he would be allowed to continue as a tenant until the court ordered otherwise, provided the relations between the defendant and the coal company continued to be...