Partnership accounts and limitation bar a later claim for specific receipts when final winding up has not occurred.

After dissolution of a partnership, a partner may share in later-discovered partnership property only where the partnership has been completely wound up and the partners' rights finally discharged. Where no final account has been taken, the proper remedy is a suit for accounts, and that remedy cannot be evaded by reframing the claim as one for a specific partnership asset. If the suit for accounts is time-barred, a later suit for a share of partnership receipts is also barred by limitation. The respondent's claim was therefore not maintainable.

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Issues: Whether, after dissolution of a partnership and expiry of the period for taking general partnership accounts, a partner can maintain a suit for a share in a specific partnership asset subsequently or previously received by another partner.

Analysis: The governing principle drawn from the authorities is that where a partnership has been completely wound up and the mutual rights and obligations of the partners have been finally discharged, any later-discovered or later-accruing item which falls in as partnership property is to be divided according to the partners' shares. But where no final account has been taken and the claim really requires the reopening of partnership accounts, the proper remedy is a suit for accounts, and if that remedy is barred by limitation, a claim framed as one for a specific asset cannot be used to evade the bar. The earlier authorities relied upon by the respondent were treated as resting on a misapprehension of the relevant principles.

Conclusion: The respondent could not maintain the second suit for a quarter share of the partnership receipts after the suit for general accounts had become time-barred. The claim was barred by limitation and was not saved by characterising it as a claim to a specific asset.

Final Conclusion: The appeal succeeded, the decree in favour of the respondent was set aside, and the suit stood dismissed with costs.

Ratio Decidendi: After a dissolved partnership has not been finally wound up within limitation, a partner cannot avoid the limitation bar by suing for a share of specific partnership receipts that would properly have fallen within the partnership accounts.

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