Byers v. Schlupe

51 Ohio St. (N.S.) 300
CourtOhio Supreme Court
DecidedApril 24, 1894
StatusPublished

This text of 51 Ohio St. (N.S.) 300 (Byers v. Schlupe) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Byers v. Schlupe, 51 Ohio St. (N.S.) 300 (Ohio 1894).

Opinion

Dickman, C. J.

The main question that claims our consideration is, whether the court of common pleas, by virtue of the affidavit which accompanied the filing of the petition of The New Philadelphia Pipe Works Company, on August 30, 1887, acquired jurisdiction and was authorized by law to issue the order of attachment against the property of the partnership firm of Samuel R. Bullock & Company. The action was commenced on the last named day against the defendants in their firm name and none other; and the affidavit in attachment alleged the following facts, and none other: “Ezra Nicholson, being duly sworn, says that he is the secretary and treasurer of The New Philadelphia Pipe Works Company, an incorporated company under the laws of the state of Ohio; [312]*312that the claim sued upon in the action is upon a contract for an amount of water pipe sold and delivered to said Samuel R. Bullock & Company, a partnership formed for the purpose of doing business in Ohio; that said claim is just, and that affiant believes that the said New Philadelphia Pipe Works Company ought to recover $29,947.04, and interest from August 20,1887; that the defendants are non-residents of the state of Ohio.” The record discloses that the partnership was composed of Samuel R. Bullock and William S. Mercer, and that neither of the individual members of the firm resided in Ohio at the time the order of attachment was issued.

Section 5011, of the Revised Statutes, provides that: “A partnership formed for the purpose of carrying on a trade or business in this state, or holding property therein, may sue or be sued by the usual or ordinary name which it has assumed, or by which it is known; and in such case it shall' not be necessary to allege or prove the names of the individual members thereof.”

By section 5042, of the Revised Statutes, regulating the manner of service and return of summons, it is provided that: “The service shall be by delivering, at any time before the return day, a copy of the summons, with the indorsements thereon, to the defendant personally, or by leaving a copy at his usual place of residence, or, if the defendant is a partnership sued by its company name, by leaving a copy at its usual place of doing business.”

And under section 5521, of the Revised Statutes, among the grounds upon which an attachment may issue, the plaintiff, in a civil action for the recovery of money may, at or after the com[313]*313mencement thereof — if the claim is a debt or demand arising upon contract, judgment or decree — • have an attachment against the property of the defendant,- “when the defendant, or one of several defendants, is a foreign corporation, or a non-resident of this state.”

In view of these statutory provisions, the validity of the attachment called in question must evidently depend upon whether the partnership of Samuel R. Bullock & Company, sued by the firm name only — neither of its members then residing’ in Ohio — was a “defendant non-resident of this state” at the time the order of attachment was issued, within the meaning of the language of the statute.

The privilege extended by the statute to sue a partnership by the usual or ordinary name which it has assumed, or by which it is known, is not to be confined to such as may be formed within this state for the purpose of carrying on a trade or business, or holding property herein. Indeed, a partnership may be formed in another state for accomplishing the same purpose in this state; its component members may all reside in the state where it is formed, and if it does business in this state, it may be sued by its company name, and served by leaving a copy of the summons at its usual place of doing business in this state. It may be thus sued and thus served, irrespective of the residence of those who compose it. ■

The fact, however, that such partnership engages in business in this state, that it may be sued in the company name, and that it may be served by leaving a copy of the summons at a prescribed place, are not the sole factors for fixing and determining its residence when it is sought to reach its [314]*314property by attachment for the benefit of its creditors. The members of a partnership do not form a collective whole, distinct from the individuals composing it; nor are they collectively endowed with any capacity of acquiring rights or incurring obligations. The rights and liabilities of a partnership are the rights and liabilities of the partners. 1 Lind. Part., 5. It is not a creation in which the identity of the individual members is merg’ed and lost, in seeking- to enforce against them the obligations of the firm.

A partnership is not, in our judgment, a legal entity, having, as such, a domicile or residence separate an d distinct from that of the individuals who constitute it. To what extent residence may be affirmed of a partnership as such, was considered by the court in Fitzgerald v. Grimmell, 64 Iowa, 261. In the dissenting opinion there is much force, and we cite the same with our concurrence : , ‘‘Residence,’’ says Adams, J., “in my opinion can be predicated only of a person natural or artificial. A partnership, as distinguished from the members composing it, is neither. Besides, it appears to me that, in any view, the mere fact that a partnership maintains for the transaction of its business, an established agent in a county where neither partner resides, cannot constitute the partnership a resident of such county. There is no pretense that an individual would become a resident of a county by merely transacting business therein through an established agent, and I am not able' to see that a different rule should be applied to a partnership.”

A principal reason for authorizing a suit against a partnership by its company name, to wit, the inability oftentimes to find out the names. of con[315]*315stituent partners, is applicable alike to domestic and foreign partnerships. In view of such inability —more apt to arise where the partners all reside in another state — the statute specifically provides, that when a partnership is sued by its usual or ordinary name, “it shall not be necessary to allege or prove the names of the individual members” of the firm. Whether the partnership was formed in this state or in another state, the names of the individual members are not required to be alleged ; and whether a defendant partnership should be deemed a non-resident of the state in an attachment of its property on the ground of non-residencé, should depend upon the fact of the non-residence of the constituent members, and not upon the mere mention of names of those who constitute the firm. It being conceded, that the first attachment in favor of The New Philadelphia Pipe Works Company, would have been valid, if the proceeding had been against Samuel R. Bullock and William S. Mercer, partners, as Samuel R. Bullock & Company, with an accompanying affidavit that the defendants were non-residents of Ohio, the failure to allege the individual names of the partnership, should not, we think, render the attachment invalid, when the affidavit states the fact that the defendants were nonresidents of the state, and the statute renders it unnecessary to set forth the names of the partners.

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Related

Fitzgerald v. Grimmell
20 N.W. 179 (Supreme Court of Iowa, 1884)

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Bluebook (online)
51 Ohio St. (N.S.) 300, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/byers-v-schlupe-ohio-1894.