Wallace v. Sisson

Citations

• 4 Cal. Unrep. 34
• 33 P. 496
• 1893 Cal. LEXIS 1009

Syllabus

<p>Partnership.—S., W. & Co. Made a Business of Hiring Chinese Laborers to railroad and construction companies. No direct compensation was paid for this service, but the understanding was that S., W. & Co. were to have the right to furnish supplies to whatever men they obtained for the companies, which supplies were to be retained out of the men’s wages. There being a scarcity of labor, S. proposed the importation of men direct from China. Not meeting with encouragement from the other partners, he took the matter to the president of the 8. P, Co., and an agreement was perfected, under which importations were afterward made. The secretary of the construction company, one of the parties signing the contract, testified that certain advances were to be made under the contract by his own company and by S., W. & Co., to cover the cost of importation; that, according to his recollection, S., W. & Co. signed the contract, and that the last he saw of it it was in the hands of W. The person who was to go to China to secure the importation was to act ostensibly for the S. P. Co., as that company was better known than the construction companies. Directions were sent by the S. P. officials to the steamship agent in China to make the advances and draw on S., W. & Co. for the entire amount. The clerk to whom the draft was presented at S., W. & Co.’s office, in their absence, claimed that they were not to pay it. The secretary of the construction company testified that he then had some conversation with the clerk concerning payment, in which reference was made to the contract. The contract itself was not produced. A large number of Chinese were imported, and worked for the construction company. Held, that there was not merely a privilege to furnish supplies, but a contract to which S., W. & Co. was a party, and which, at least by force of usage, gave them the right to furnish supplies to the men obtained thereunder, and on the death of one of the partners his estate was entitled to