Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/235

 7. SC BUTTON: ROMAN LAW INFLUENCE 221 that it appears in itself to have been at least partly based on the Roman law.^ Mr. Justice Story has made an elaborate and detailed investigation of the relations of the Common to the Roman law, and finds great similarity between them. ^ Both laws recognize the difference between a partnership and a community of interest,^ and provide that no new partner can be introduced without the concurrence of the original part- ners. * But the Common law has refused to follow the Roman law in holding invalid an agreement that the personal repre- sentative of a partner should succeed him in the partnership. Both laws require a partnership to be in good faith and for a lawful purpose; ^ and that all partners must contribute something, whether property or skill, to the common stock.^ Both require community in profits among the partners and, to a more limited extent, community in losses.' In the ab- sence of express agreement both laws require an equal divi- sion of profits.^ The Common law formerly went beyond the Roman law in making persons who share the profits of a trade liable to operation of law, to third parties as partners,* but this rule was overthrown in Cox v. Hickman}^ Both laws recognize a division into universal, general, and special part- nerships, though the chief Common law division is into public and private partnerships.^^ Both regulate the duration of partnership by the consent of the partners, but the Roman law went further than the English, and prohibited partner- ships extending beyond the life of the parties.^^ No particu- lar forms for the constitution of a partnership were required by either law.^^ By the Roman law, the mere partnership relation conferred less extensive powers of disposition of the partnership property than are given by the Common law.^* A Roman partner could not bind the firm by debts, nor alien- ate more than his share of the partnership property. But in the absence of express stipulation and with some limitations • Story on Partnership, Boston, 1881, 7th ed. •Story, §§ 3, 4. ^ Ibid. % 5. » § 6. •§15. «§ 20. »§§24, 25. "§37. »«18 C. B. 617. 8 H. L. C. 268. »» Story §§ 72-76. » • Story §§ 85, 196. » » § 86. " § 95.
 * Spence, i. 665.