Durant v. Rhener

• Decision Date: 27 February 1880
• Parties: E. W. DURANT and others <I>vs.</I> ESAIAS RHENER.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

26 Minn. 362

E. W. DURANT and others vs. ESAIAS RHENER.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

February 27, 1880.

Action brought in the district court for Washington county, for a dissolution of a partnership alleged to consist of plaintiffs and defendant, and for an accounting by defendant. The defendant denied the partnership. The referee before

whom the case was tried found the following facts as to the formation of the partnership: On January 20, 1878, that day being Sunday, the plaintiffs (who were partners as Durant, Wheeler & Co.) and the defendant verbally agreed on the terms of a contract as follows: "That Durant, Wheeler & Co. and the defendant should put up a large quantity of ice, for sale to the southern market; that the ice should be put up at Baytown, in this state; that the defendant should superintend the putting up of such ice without charge for his personal services, and that the plaintiffs should furnish all the money necessary to pay the expenses of putting up the same. The plaintiffs were just about starting for the south, and it was further agreed that they should look over the market and determine whether it was safe and advisable to put up the ice; and if they decided that it was so safe and advisable, they were to notify the defendant to that effect, who, on such notification, was to commence the work of getting out and putting up the ice, not to exceed 5,000 tons. It was also arranged that David B. Loomis, the cashier and book-keeper of the plaintiffs, and who had charge of plaintiffs' financial business, was, on behalf of the plaintiffs, to furnish the defendant with all the money necessary to carry out the contract, whenever the defendant should call on him for that purpose. The profits and losses of the enterprise were to be shared equally between the plaintiffs and the defendant."

The referee also found that plaintiffs went south, and investigated the ice market, and on February 11, 1878, at New Orleans, wrote to Loomis, "instructing him to see defendant at once and tell him to put up 5,000 tons of ice, in accordance with the arrangement previously made." Under this direction, communicated to him by Loomis, the defendant put up 2,300 tons of ice, "and he regarded the plaintiffs as having an equal interest in the ice with himself up to the time when he subsequently sold the same. The defendant paid all the expenses, and furnished all the labor required in putting up the ice, and never received any money from the plaintiffs for...