Roberts v. Pepple

• Decision Date: 19 November 1884
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court
• Parties: ROBERTS and others v. PEPPLE and others.

21 N.W. 319

55 Mich. 367

ROBERTS and others v. PEPPLE and others.

Supreme Court of Michigan

November 19, 1884

Error to Wayne.

J.G Dickinson, for plaintiffs, appellants.

William H. Wells, for defendants.

CAMPBELL J.

Plaintiffs who are private bankers, sued defendants jointly on several notes signed with defendants' partnership name of J.T Pepple & Co. Wilcox defended on the ground that the notes were given without his assent for private obligations and purposes of Pepple, and that plaintiffs did not take them in ignorance of their purpose. The verdict below was in his favor. Judgment was rendered against Pepple alone, who has not appealed. Plaintiffs bring error. The first error assigned is that on such a claim alleged as a partnership liability there could be no judgment against Pepple alone. We need not consider how this would be if Pepple had complained of it, although we do not wish to be understood as suggesting any impropriety in it. It cannot hurt plaintiffs to have a sole judgment against Pepple if they cannot hold Wilcox; and there can be no ground of error for any such reason on their behalf. Some of the other errors assigned are not urged, and we shall confine ourselves to such as are urged, and these are the only substantial questions raised:

Complaint is made that plaintiffs were not allowed to inquire into the extent of Pepple's private means, and to show they were all locked up in the firm. We are not sure that this error is well founded in fact on the record but, assuming it to be so, it is not-sustainable. The liability of the firm could only be created for firm purposes, or such as were by the creditors presumably firm purposes; and a partner who has no means is not, for that reason, entitled to use partnership means for his own purposes. The inquiry was foreign to the issue. Objection is also made to the admission of certain book entries on defendants' ledger. If the record showed what those entries were, we might consider them; but it cannot be assumed that all such entries were incompetent, and we cannot presume that these were.

The assignments from the sixth to the tenth cover the same ground. They were all based on objections to questions addressed to and answered by Wilcox as to whether Pepple had any actual authority to use the firm name in these cases, and whether Wilcox knew of or acquiesced in them. All of these matters were proper for consideration, and it...