Grinton v. Strong

Citations

• 148 Ill. 587
• 36 N.E. 559

Syllabus

<p>1. Partnership—whether it exists—principal and agent—division o f profits. Even where parties agree to enter into a joint enterprise and share in the profits, a partnership, as between themselves, is not necessarily the result. The intention of the parties always controls.</p> <p>2. A employed B to manage his business affairs generally, and to collect rents, debts, etc.; and to make investments, and agreed to pay the latter three per cent on all amounts collected for rents, and also to pay him out of the net income of the personal capital one-fifth of every transaction, which was to be entered in the proper accounts, said accounts to be balanced on the first of every month, “one-fifth of such balance to be charged to A and credited to B,” and the contract further provided that when B should receive any and all of such net proceeds realized from the transaction before specified, it should be upon the check of A, and by another clause in the contract B was made liable for one-fifth of the losses for any business done by him: Held, that such agreement did not constitute a partnership between the parties, but the relation created was that of principal and agent.</p> <p>3. By the fourth clause of the agreement B was required “to use the personal capital of the party of the first part (A) in all legitimate transactions, such as he shall approve, for the purpose of producing an income from said capital,” and by the seventh clause was “to receive from the net income of the personal capital one-fifth of every transaction Held, that the words “net income of the personal capital,” did not mean an increased value in real estate bought with A’s means.</p> <p>4. In such case the personal capital belonged to A, and any property purchased with it, real or personal, also belonged to him. If that property increased in value, the profit was his. While he owned it, and while the contract remained in force, B was entitled to one-fifth of the net income derived from it, and nothing mo