Hyde v. Moxie Nerve Food Co.

• Decision Date: 01 March 1894
• Parties: HYDE et al. v. MOXIE NERVE-FOOD CO.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

160 Mass. 559

36 N.E. 585

HYDE et al. v. MOXIE NERVE-FOOD CO.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

March 1, 1894

COUNSEL

Samuel Williston, for plaintiffs.

Augustin Thompson, for defendant.

OPINION

HOLMES, J.

This is an action to recover for services rendered and expenses incurred by the plaintiffs as attorneys for the defendant. The case is here on the defendant's exceptions to the refusal of the judge below to make certain rulings requested by it. The defendant was not represented before us by professional counsel, and the argument on its behalf took a wide scope. But much as, under some circumstances, we might feel the force of the general considerations addressed to us we are not at liberty to go beyond the questions of law raised by the requests, and we necessarily confine ourselves strictly to them.

The first ruling requested was as follows: "That if the evidence should prove that Henry D. Hyde, Marquis F Dickinson, Jr., and Elmer P. Howe were not copartners at the time the present action was brought, the plaintiffs cannot recover." This seems to be founded upon an imperfect analogy. It is said that a firm is a legal person, and that a dead person cannot sue. But a firm is not a person, in the sense supposed. For technical purposes of suing or being sued, the law does not know the firm, but only the men composing it. If we leave technicalities on one side, and consider practical convenience, it would not do at all to let dissolution--for instance, by the death of a member--prevent the collection of debts due to the firm. If authority is needed, the point is settled by decisions. Fish v. Gates, 133 Mass. 441; Page v. Wolcott, 15 Gray, 536.

The exceptions to the refusal to give the second and third rulings requested are waived.

The fourth ruling requested was "that the plaintiffs cannot recover for any alleged services of Hollis R. Bailey, their employe, beyond the amount which they have actually paid him for services rendered to the defendant corporation." If as is assumed in this request, the defendant employed the plaintiffs, and did not employ or contract with Bailey, and if the plaintiffs, with the defendant's assent, did employ Bailey to do parts of the work,--they taking the responsibility to the defendant,--then, as between the defendant and them, the work was their work, and they were entitled to be paid a reasonable price for it, without regard to what they...