Legal Question in Business Law in California

Re: dissolution of business

First, partnerships don't need written or even oral partnership agreements. Of course, a written agreement is strongly recommended, but lacking an express agreement of any kind, a court can still find an implied agreement, infer its terms from the business conduct of the partners, and enforce it according to those terms.

Whether your partnership is 50-50 (or not) is not an automatic presumption due to lack of an express agreement; if other facts and circumstances showed a different percentage, a court could order a breakup on some other reasonable percentage split according to the evidence. However, a 50-50 determination is most usual.

I agree with you that a split of the partnership assets that gives her the phone numbers is potentially unfair unless you get something in offset. When partnerships are dissolved and wound up, each partner should receive a share of the net assets in relation to his or her capital account, i.e., in most cases, percentage interest in the partnership. To maintain 50-50, you should get something balancing the value of the phone numbers, which may be quite valuable to someone staying in the business.

I don't know if it's worth going to court about, and I don't know if small claims would handle your issues, but you should certainly make your position known to the ex-partner.