Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 3.djvu/77

 legal representatives of said deceased partner; that the name should be “The Sectional Dock Company;” that said copartnership carried on business under said agreement until the fifth day of December, 1870, when said Patrick Rogers died, in the city of Cincinnati, leaving a will, which was duly admitted to probate in Hamilton county, Ohio; that by the terms of said will Robert C. Rogers was appointed executor of his estate, and was directed to continue the interest of decedent in the said Sectional Dock Company, at St. Louis, until the same could be disposed of; that said Robert C. Rogers did continue the said business as executor, representing the interests of the estate of said Patrick Rogers in said partnership until his death, when the defendant, Joseph Rogers, was appointed administrator of said estate, with the will annexed; that said Robert C. Rogers, as executor of said Patrick Rogers, deceased, took possession, by virtue of the will of Patrick Rogers, of the interest of said estate in the Sectional Dry Dock Company, at St. Louis, and of the Marine Railway & Dry Dock Company, of Cincinnati, and of the Louisville & Cincinnati Mail Line Company, and that he collected dividends therefrom, and that the estate realized large sums of money from the second and third properties so mentioned, and still holds interests therein undisturbed, and that whatever sums have been realized by said estate from either of said properties is liable for the debts contracted in carrying on the others, and especially for the claims sued on in this case; that by the laws of the state of Missouri, where said copartnership was formed, and where the notes were executed, the liability of partners is joint and several, and, therefore, each partner is liable separately upon a debt of said firm.

To this petition the defendant has filed an answer containing three separate defences, the second of which is only necessary to be noticed, and is as follows:

“For a further defence to said first cause of action, he says it is true that prior to the fifth day of December, 1870, said Patrick Rogers was a partner in the copartnership known by the name of the Sectional Dry Dock Company named in the petition.