Adams, a consulting engineer, entered into a partnership with
three others for the practice of their profession. The only written partnership agreement is a brief document specifying that
Adams is entitled to 55 percent of the profits and the others
to 15 percent each. The venture is a total failure. Creditors are
pressing for payment, and some have filed suit. The partners
cannot agree on a course of action.
Explain how many of the partners must agree to achieve
each of the following objectives:
a. To add Jones, also an engineer, as a partner, Jones being
willing to contribute a substantial amount of new capital.
b. To sell a vacant lot held in the partnership name, which
had been acquired as a future office site for the partnership.
c. To move the partnership’s offices to less expensive quarters.
d. To demand a formal accounting.
e. To dissolve the partnership.
f. To agree to submit certain disputed claims to arbitration, which Adams believes will prove less expensive than
litigation.
g. To sell all of the partnership’s personal property, Adams
having what he believes to be a good offer for the property
from a newly formed engineering firm.
h. To alter the respective interests of the parties in the profits
and losses by decreasing Adams’s share to 40 percent and
increasing the others’ shares accordingly.
i. To assign all the partnership’s assets to a bank in trust for
the benefit of creditors, hoping to work out satisfactory
arrangements without filing for bankruptcy.