Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 8.djvu/430

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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.