Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/236

 222 //. FROM THE 1100' S TO THE 1800' S each partner of an English partnership may be taken, by out- siders, as having an equal and complete power of administra- tion over the whole of the partnership affairs.^ Both laws admit a discharge of a debt to or by one partner to be good for or against the whole firm. ^ In the Common law, within the scope of the partnership, the majority have a right to govern, but in the Roman law the express or implied assent of all the partners is required.** Both laws make partners liable to each other for negligence or fraud, and require a withdrawal from the partnership to be in good faith.* Both laws consider a partnership for no certain period as dissoluble at the will of any partner ; ^ but the Roman law went further than the Common law in requiring that the dissolution should not take place at an unseasonable time.^ Both laws allow the Court to dissolve the partnership in case of positive or medi- tated abuse of it by a partner, or when its objects are no longer attainable, as in the case of a partner's insanity.^ By both laws, the assignment of his interest by one partner, con- trary to the will of the others, dissolves the partnership.^ Both laws dissolve the partnership by death ; ^ and many of the provisions in both laws for taking an account and winding up a partnership are similar, though the English sale is more convenient than the Roman division.^** Whilst English part- ners are liable to third parties in solido, by the Roman law they were only liable pro parte. This enumeration shows a sufficient agreement between the two systems to justify the assertion that while the method of the introduction of so much Roman law in early times is not clear, in later times most of its leading principles have become incorporated into the Common law of Partnership.^^ Mr. Spence and Lord Justice Fry ^^ agree that the Equi- table Jurisdiction to enforce Specific Performance is not derived from the Roman law, which only gave damages for r breach of contract, and adhered to the maxim ; " riemo potest » 8 103. » §116. '§ 125: noted by Blaekstone, i. 484. "§307. '§317. »«§352. " Spence, i. 665. i. 645.
 * §§ 135, 170, 176. * §§ 268, 269. • §§ 275, 276. » §§ 288, 292.
 * ^ Fry on Specific Performance, 2nd edit. Lond. 1881, pp. 3-8. Spence,