Austin, TX commercial litigation attorney John W. Thomas shares the story of a memorable partnership dispute he handled. He shares that he is currently handling a case in Florida involving three close friends who had formed a partnership years ago. They had a written partnership agreement tied to royalties from a patent. For about fifteen years, the managing partner had received the royalty payments every month and distributed them to his partners, even writing “royalty split” on each check.

When the managing partner passed away, his daughters suddenly claimed there had never been a partnership—that the patent had belonged solely to their father. They hired two major law firms and spent years, along with millions of dollars in legal fees, trying to prove that no partnership existed, despite the clear evidence that one did.