Delectus Person' - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition delectus-person

Definition :

Delectus person' (the choice of a person). It is an established principle of the Common Law that, as a partnership can commence only by the voluntary contract of the parties, so, when it is once formed, no third person can be afterwards introduced into the firm without the concurrence of all the partners who compose the original firm. It is not sufficient to constitute the new relation that one or more of the firm shall have assented to his introduction; for the dissent of a single partner will exclude him, since it would, in effect, otherwise amount to a right of one or more of the partners to change the nature, and terms, and obligations of the original contract, and to take away the delectus person', which is essential to the constitution of a partner-ship. So stubborn, indeed, is this rule, that even the executors and other personal representatives of a partner do not, in that capacity, succeed to the state and condition of that partner. The Roman Law is directed to the same purpose. It even pressed the rule of a still further extent, and held that a positive stipulation between the partners at the commence-ment of the partnership, that the heir or personal representative of a partner should succeed him in the partnership, was inoperative and incapable of being enforced. The common Law, however, treats such a stipulation as valid and obligatory. This also, according to Pothier, was the doctrine of the old French Law; and the modern code of France has expressly adopted it, in opposition to the Roman Law. Such also is the law of Scotland, Story on Partnership, 6.