Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Yes. There was a time when partners could not sue one another without triggering a dissolution of the partnership, but all partnerships are now subject to the 1994 Revised Uniform Partnership Act, which provides (at Corporations Code section 16405(b) that a partner may maintain an action against the partnership or another partner for legal or equitable relief, with or without an accounting as to the partnership business, to (and then follows a fairly comprehensive list of grievances which I would think includes your situation). Also, CC 16405(a) allows the partnership to sue a partner.

In designing the pleadings of such a suit, the drafting attorney needs to be careful to:

1. Distinguish between causes of action that are brought in the name, and for the benefit, of an individual partner, and those (if any) that are brought derivatively by a partner on behalf of the partnership; and

2. Distinguish between his or her authority to represent the partnership vs. authority to represent a particular partner -- in other words, who is the client? (#1 and #2 are interrelated.)