Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 3.djvu/251

 24e FBDEBAIi BEPOBTEB. �cause he bas been able to buy in enough of the outstand- ing shares of the vessel to give him once more a majority ? I should not like to be a party to any such unconscionable endeavor, and am glad that I do not find any principle of law that requires me to be one. It is eonceded that a sailing right is not transferable, and that no such right inhered to the shares which Clayton sold to Weeks. It may also be eonceded that if a majority in interest of the owners, irre- spective of Clayton, claimed the possession, the court would accede to their request, although no cause for the master's removal were assigned. In saying this I do not overlook the remark of Sir William Scott, in The New Draper, supra, that, "in the case of the master and part owner, something more is required" than the mere expression of the will of the majority in interest "before the court will proceed to dis- possess a person who is also a proprietor of the vessel, and whose possession, therefore, the common law, upon general principles, is inclined to maintain." Nor do I forget that two of the ablest text writers of this country (Story and Parsons) have given their assent to the law as thus stated, See Story on Part. § 445, and Par. on Part. 562. But I think the later and better opinion is that the owners of the shares of a ves- sel are tenants in common, and not partners, and that the logical sequence of such tenancy is that the majority in interest may displace the master at their will without cause assigned. Montgomery v. Henry, 1 Dal. 49-52. �But, conceding these thinga, may not a part owner, by his act or conduct, forfeit his right to complain of the possession of another part owner? May he not, by the acceptance of a consideration, estop himself from the exercise of his undisputed right, under ordinary circumstanees, to take possession and control of a vessel from the person who paid him the considera- tion for such possession and control? Although the doctrine of estoppel ordinarily rests upon the ground that the law will not permit a party to profit by his own fraud, is there not a class of cases where a person, wholly innocent in a moral point of view, may be bound by his acts and sayings, where, ����