Did Signing Lease for Pa. Law Firm Make 2 Partners Personally Liable?
Although other partners of a dissolved Pittsburgh law firm were held personally liable for the balance due on the remainder of the five-year office lease, two former Titus & McConomy partners say they aren’t.
That’s because they signed the lease on behalf of the law firm, not as individual partners, Thomas Arbogast and Thomas Wettach argued, convincing a majority of the Pennsylvania Superior Court panel of judges that heard the case. However, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments by the landlord, Trizechahn Gateway, that the panel got it wrong, explains the Legal Intelligencer.
“Here the individual liability of Arbogast and Wettach arises not from the fact that they executed the master lease on behalf of the partnership, but from their separate juridical existence as general partners,” wrote Superior Court Judge Joan Orie Melvin in a dissent to the two-judge majority opinion. “These appellants, in other words, donned their ‘representative hat’ but did not remove their ‘partner hat’ when they executed the master lease on behalf of the partnership.”
Related coverage:
Pittsburgh Business Times (2003): “Lease dispute leads defunct law firm to file Chapter 11”
