Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 8.djvu/430

This page needs to be proofread.
414
HARVARD LAW REVIEW.
414

414 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. of the partners make an unauthorized attempt to turn the whole partnership property and business over to other principals for ninety-nine years, in exchange for an annuity or other investment. On the question of equity jurisdiction, the mere expediency of the exchange as a financial measure would be as immaterial as the cor- porate or unincorporate form of the partnership organization. The recovery of one dollar by an expenditure of one hundred in a suit at law would not be a sufficient remedy for a partner objecting to the illegal change of his business. Specific relief would not be less necessary than in the case of a refusal to perform a written agreement for the sale of land. Performance of the Northern charter-contract would not be rendered inequitable in law by the mere fact of non-performance being more beneficial to the stockholders. The plaintiffs' equitable right to be principals in the common-carrier business between Con- cord and Vermont according to their contract, would not be barred by a finding that it would be better for them to exchange that business for the occupation of a lessor, or the business of a road running from Concord to Maine or Massachusetts. They have not agreed that their partners may take them from the stipulated posi- tion of principals in the work of carrying passengers and freight between Concord and Lebanon, and give them any other vocation in which a court or jury may think they would be more profitably and judiciously employed. Their expulsion, for ninety-nine years, from the Northern carrier business, in violation of their partner- ship contract, is a case in which the general principle of equity gives an injunction, and the evidence shows no exceptional reason for withholding the specific relief necessary to prevent their wrong- ful exclusion from their chosen employment. Charles Doe.