People v. Cacho
People v. Cacho
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the court.
Ramón Cacho was charged with, and convicted of, selling roasted and ground coffee adulterated with burnt sugar.
From the evidence it does not appear that the appellant personally sold the coffee giving rise to the charge in the instant case. What appears therefrom is that the appellant has a grocery store and roasts and grinds coffee for sale; that he keeps delivery trucks to carry coffee to the stores which buy it, and to which it is sold by his employees; and that one of these sold the coffee seized, which was delivered in a paper bag bearing the name of R. Cacho & Co., of which the appellant is the manager.
The only evidence in regard to the existence of such business partnership was what the witnesses stated, but it did not appear from their statements that the appellant had another managing partner. The fact that a person trades under a partnership name is not conclusive proof that silch partnership exists, since the Code of Commerce provides in its section 119 that every commercial company should set forth its constitution in a public instrument which shall be recorded in the Mercantile Eegistry. It may occur, and it has occurred, that a person does business under a firm name without having a partnership with another person. Consequently, it was not proved sufficiently that the coffee was roasted and ground by a partnership. But, even admitting that such partnership existed, the charge was proper against llamón Cacho, even though he had a partner, as we have declared in the case of People v. Barquet et al., 19 P.R.R. 753, in which Narciso Barquet and Juan Barquet, who had a business partnership with other persons, were charged
The judgment appealed from must be affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.