Eadie and others v. Macbean

Subject_1 Partnership Subject_2 Insanity of Partner Subject_3 Dissolution of Partnership.

Partnership Subject_4 Duties of Partners — permanent Incapacity of Partner. Facts: When by the terms of a contract of copartnery the whole partners are bound to take an active management of the business, the permanent insanity or incapacity of one of them operates a dissolution of the partnership, because such partner cannot perform his part of the contract.

For many years prior to 1880 Mr Hugh MacBean had been in business as an oil and colour manufacturer in Glasgow. In the beginning of 1880 he was sole partner of his firm of MacBean & Co., and proprietor of the works in which it was carried on, as well as of the plant. He was then about 60 years of age. In that year he assumed into partnership Archibald Eadie, John Cassells, and John Shankland, of whom Eadie and Shankland had been in the employment of Hugh MacBean & Co.

The curator bonis lodged answers. He referred to the provisions of the contract of copartnery, quoted supra . He stated that MacBean had left the active part of the management to the petitioners from the first; that he was not insane, and that the object of the petition was during MacBean's illness to turn out of a business which he had built up, and to acquire it for themselves, without any payment for goodwill; that the petition was presented without regard to MacBean's interests. He denied the averments as to MacBean's mental state, and quoted the medical certificate above referred to.

“ Opinion .—The ground on which the petitioners maintain that their copartnery should be dissolved and the business wound up is, that the senior partner, Mr MacBean, is permanently disabled from taking part in the business of the copartnery in consequence of paralysis, by which his nervous system has been shattered, his power of speech almost lost, and his mental faculties greatly impaired.