Legal Question in Business Law in California

I left a business startup partnership with an written and verbal agreement about the terms. I recently used hello sign to send the two other partners the written agreement to sign. I received the agreement back as an attachment to the email. It was somehow signed not through the hello sign site as the site doesn't have the signatures recorded. I suppose it could have been printed, signed, scanned and attached or perhaps downloaded and adobe or some other program was used to sign it. It appears that perhaps one of the partners could have signed both names but I can't be sure. After it was somehow signed, it was attached to an email and sent to me from one of the partner's email address. Is it legal?


Asked on 2/05/16, 2:20 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Bryan Whipple Bryan R. R. Whipple, Attorney at Law

Without attempting to give you an answer to the specific question -- "Is it legal?" which I would re-interpret to be asking "Is the agreement enforceable?", I would at least say this: Agreements to form partnerships don't need to be in writing. They don't even need to be complete oral agreements. A partnership can be formed when two or more people simply behave as though they are business partners. I would say, then, without more details as to whether a partnership business was formed and being carried on, that it is very possible that the agreement, whether signed or not, could be enforceable in court. A lot depends upon what you are trying to establish and prove, and what has actually happened, but partnership law does not require a whole lot of formality in forming partnerships. See Corporations Code section 16202, for example: "........the association of two or more persons to carry on as coowners a business for profit forms a partnership, whether or not the persons intend to form a partnership."

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Answered on 2/08/16, 11:08 am


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