Trappey v. Lumbermen's Mut. Cas. Co.

• Decision Date: 20 February 1956
• Docket Number: No. 42253,42253
• Citation: 229 La. 632,86 So.2d 515
• Parties: Ellis TRAPPEY v. LUMBERMEN'S MUTUAL CASUALTY CO.
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court

Page 515

86 So.2d 515

229 La. 632

Ellis TRAPPEY v. LUMBERMEN'S MUTUAL CASUALTY CO.

No. 42253.

Supreme Court of Louisiana.

Feb. 20, 1956.

Rehearing Denied March 26, 1956.

Davidson, Meaux, Onebane & Nehrbass, J. J. Davidson, Jr., Lafayette, for defendant, applicant.

McBride & Brewster, Lafayette, Wm. Harris McBride and William L. Brewster, Lafayette, for plaintiff-respondent.

FOURNET, Chief Justice.

We granted certiorari upon the application of the defendant, showing that the decision of the Court of Appeal in this case is in direct conflict with decisions of the Court of Appeal, Second Circuit.

The plaintiff, Ellis Trappey, who had been receiving compensation at the rate of $30 per week for injuries suffered in the course of his employment as manager and supervisor of the Lafayette plant of the Trappey Beverage Company of New Iberia and Lafayette, instituted suit directly against his employer's insurer, Lumbermen's Mutual Casualty Company, which, upon learning that at the time of the accident the plaintiff had become a partner in the business, ¹ discontinued the compensation payments.

The trial court, relying on the holding in the cases of Dezendorf v. National Casualty Co., Al.App., 171 So. 160, and Harper v. Ragus, La.App., 62 So.2d 167, both decided by the Court of Appeal, Second Circuit, stated that 'a partner cannot be both an employer and an employee within the intent of the Workmen's Compensation Act [LSA-R.S. 23:1021 et seq.]' and dismissed plaintiff's suit on exceptions of no cause or right of action. On Appeal, the Court of Appeal, First Circuit, declined to follow the rationale of the cited cases and, after analyzing them, showed that the Dezendorf case ² was based on the doctrine of the common law treating a partnership as an aggregate of individuals, the component members being co-owners of the partnership property and holding as joint tenants, and treating the payment of wages to a partner as but the adjustment of accounts between partners; and observed that the Ragus case merely followed the Dezendorf case. The appellate court thereupon undertook to show, in a carefully considered opinion, the nature of partnership under the civil law and under the jurispudence of this State as being an entity with legal relations separate and distinct from those of its individual members, as a result of which it concluded, we think correctly, that the plaintiff had stated a right of action against the defendant; it reversed the judgment of the lower court, overruled the exceptions, and remanded the case for further proceedings. See La.App., 77 So.2d 183.

Under our civil law system, unlike that of the common law, a partnership is an abstract ideal being with legal relations separate and distinct from those of its individual members; as was very aptly said by this Court more than a century ago, 'The partnership once formed and put into action, becomes, in contemplation of law, a moral being, distinct from the persons who compose it. It is a civil person, which has its peculiar rights and attributes. 'Une personne fictive et morale separee des associes. Fictae Cujusdam personae vicem obtinet.' * * *;' and, as pointed out in the opinion, '* * * the partners are not the owners of the partnership property. The ideal being thus recognized by a fiction of law, is the owner; it has a right to control and administer the property, to enable it to fulfil its legal duties and obligations; and the respective parties, who associated themselves for the purpose of participating in the profits which may accrue, are not the owners of the property itself, but of the residuum which may be left from the entire partnership property, after the obligations of the partnership are discharged.' Smith v. McMicken, 3 La.Ann. 319, at pages 321-322; see, also, Christen v. Ruhlman, 22 La.Ann. 570; Paradise v. Gerson, 32 La.Ann. 532; Stothart v. William T. Hardie & Co., 110 La. 696, 34 So. 740; E. B. Hayes Machinery Co. v. Eastham, 147 La. 347, 84 So. 898; Brinson v. Monroe Automobile & Supply Co., 180 La. 1064, 158 So. 558, 96 A.L.R. 1206; Atkinson & Co. v. Hibernia Nat. Bank in New Orleans, 186 La. 1074, 173 So. 768. The partnership may be used without making the individual members thereof parties defendant. Brinson v. Monroe Automobile & Supply Co., supra; E. B. Hayes Machinery Co. v. Eastham, supra. It goes without saying that the wages due to the employees of a partnership are due and payable regardless of whether the partnership operates at a profit or a loss; and while commercial partners are bound in solido for the debts of the partnership, Article 2872, LSA-Civil Code of Louisiana that liability does not not become enforceable until the partnership has been...