Moses v. Krauss

• Decision Date: 17 June 1907
• Citation: 44 So. 162,90 Miss. 618
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: MAURICE MOSES ET AL. v. FRANK KRAUSS

44 So. 162

90 Miss. 618

MAURICE MOSES ET AL. v. FRANK KRAUSS

Supreme Court of Mississippi

June 17, 1907

March 1907

FROM the chancery court of Jefferson county, HON. WILLIAM P. S VENTRESS, Chancellor.

Krauss appellee, was complainant in the court below; Moses and others, appellants, were defendants there. From a decree in complainant's favor defendants appealed to the supreme court.

The bill showed that complainant, Krauss, and one Simon were formerly partners and that the copartnership owned the lands in controversy; that at its dissolution complainant sold his interest in all the partnership property except the lands to Simon; that Simon conveyed his one-half interest in the lands to a trustee for the appellants, Maurice and Clara Moses, and the trustee had afterwards conveyed the said half interest to appellants; that whatever rights appellants had to the lands they acquired the same with full knowledge of complainant's rights; that Simon, complainant's former partner, was indebted to complainant on account of the partnership affairs. The prayer of the bill was for an accounting to ascertain the extent of Simon's indebtedness to complainant and for a partition of the lands charging the indebtedness on defendant's interest.

Simon, former partner of complainant, was not made a party to the suit.

Decree reversed and cause remanded.

Claude Pintard, for appellants.

Complainant's bill is defective, because Simon, a necessary party to the suit, was not joined as a defendant. The issues involved concerned partnership property. Accounting is asked because of the former existence of the partnership. There could certainly be no decree rendered as to any of the partnership matters, which would in any way be binding, unless Simon should be a party to the proceedings. The principle is elementary, that there can be no legal accounting between partners, except by a bill for dissolution of the partnership and an accounting, or a bill for an accounting without prayer for dissolution, and in either case, all partners must be parties to the suit, either as complainants or defendants.

Corban & Easterling, for appellee.

The only question presented in this cause is one of law. The appellants, having failed to introduce any proof in support of their contentions, cannot escape the legal conclusion of facts testified to, and shown by their answer to the cross- bill.

The law of this case we think is well settled. Tiedeman on Real...