Old v Hodgkinson; Old v McInnes

The case of Old v Hodgkinson; Old v McInnes involved a dispute between former partners regarding the dissolution of their partnership. The matter was heard in the Supreme Court of Victoria, where the primary issue was the valuation and distribution of the partnership's assets, specifically whether the goodwill of the dissolved partnership should be considered in settling the accounts. The court had to determine the extent to which the goodwill of the former partnership should be taken into account, particularly in light of the former partners continuing to trade in separate firms.

The central legal issue was whether the goodwill of the dissolved partnership should be valued and included in the settlement of the accounts among the former partners. The court had to consider the general principle that goodwill generally has no independent existence separate from the conduct of the business, and whether this principle applied to the circumstances where the former partners continued to trade as separate entities. The court also examined whether the goodwill could be apportioned between the two new firms based on the components of the former partnership's goodwill they were using.

The court reasoned that while the former partners continued to trade using components of the goodwill of the former partnership, the goodwill of the dissolved partnership must have nil value when taking the accounts of the former partnership. This was because goodwill generally has no independent existence separate from the conduct of the business, and the former partners were now operating as separate firms. The court found that the goodwill of the dissolved partnership should not be considered in the settlement of the accounts, as it had no value independent of the ongoing business operations. Consequently, the court ordered that the goodwill of the former partnership be disregarded in the final settlement of the accounts between the former partners.