Bradshaw v. Morse
| Decision Date | 18 October 1897 |
| Parties | BRADSHAW v. MORSE. |
| Court | Montana Supreme Court |
Appeal from district court, Granite county; Theodore Brantley Judge.
Action by W. C. Bradshaw against G. W. Morse for an accounting. From a judgment for defendant, plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.
It appears from the record that the parties to this suit became partners in the butcher business at the town of Philipsburg in the county of Granite, about November, 1880, and continued to do business as such under the firm name of Morse & Bradshaw until some time in June, 1890, when the partnership was dissolved by the sale of the business to another party. In November, 1894, the plaintiff brought this suit for a settlement of the account of said firm, claiming defendant to be largely indebted to him. The defendant admitted the account between the parties, as members of said firm, to be unsettled, but denied his indebtedness to the plaintiff upon a settlement of the account between them, claiming, on the contrary, that plaintiff, upon such a settlement, would be shown to be indebted to the defendant in a large sum. The court made an order appointing E. Scharnikow, Esq., referee in the case. The order appointing the referee states that "It appearing to the court from the pleadings filed in said cause that the trial of the issue of facts raised herein requires the examination of a long partnership account of the partnership transactions and dealings of the firm of Morse & Bradshaw, as set out in the pleadings of the parties herein from on or about the 15th day of November, 1880, until the dissolution of said firm, on or about June 9, 1890, and also of the partnership transactions thereafter by the said parties in the winding up of the business of said firm up to the commencement of this action, November 4, 1893: Therefore it is hereby ordered and adjudged and decreed that this is a proper cause for accounting; therefore, by reason the premises aforesaid, it is hereby ordered, adjudged, and decreed that the cause be, and the same is hereby, referred by the consent of the attorneys for the plaintiff and the defendant, to Edward Scharnikow, an attorney of this bar, to examine the accounts of the co-partnership heretofore existing between plaintiff and defendant from the commencement of said co-partnership up to the present date." After ordering the parties to deliver their books and papers to said referee, and authorizing him to take the testimony of witnesses offered by said parties, the order continues: "And the said referee, after hearing and considering all the evidence, shall thereafter, on or before the 1st day of October, A. D. 1894, make up an account stated between the said parties plaintiff and defendant, and shall on or before said 1st day of October, A. D. 1894, report the same to this court, with his findings thereon." The refer made an elaborate report of the transactions between the parties in the conduct of their partnership business, and made a large number of findings of fact, and reported a number of conclusions of law. After allowing the plaintiff wages for personally conducting the business of the firm from the time it commenced until it was dissolved, the referee finds that after January, 1888, no credit for wages is made until some time after the dissolution of the partnership, in January, 1894. The referee allowed the accounts for wages during the continuance of the partnership on the ground that the plaintiff had taken the credit therefor on the books of the firm, which were open to the inspection of the defendant, and on the further ground that the defendant had never objected to the allowance. The referee found that on the 31st day of January, 1891, after the dissolution of the partnership, the plaintiff in one item credited his account with $3,240 for wages, and that said credit was an overcharge of $670. Among other things, the referee found that the defendant had advanced about $90,000 cash to the firm, to enable it to carry on its...
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