David and Julianna are both studying business at a university in Adelaide. However, their true passion is health and fitness. David is seriously into martial arts and teaches Kung Fu at a local martial arts school, whereas Julianna is a fitness enthusiast who recently completed a personal training course.
David and Julianna met earlier this year at a tutorial and, despite David being 10 years older than Julianna, they became good friends and eventually started dating. They shared videos of each other doing martial arts and fitness workouts. One evening, after drinks, they came up with the idea of
formulating their own method of exercise, called “Kung-Fitness”, combining David’s knowledge of martial arts with Julianna’s personal training skills. David and Julianna proposed setting up a studio to record instructional videos for online viewing. The next day, even after the wine had worn off, they
were still keen on the idea.
They proceeded with their venture by creating a YouTube channel account with the username “David and Julianna’s Kung-Fitness”. They did this following a brief discussion about whether to use You Tube,
TikTok or both. Julianna thought TikTok was a better option, but David thought it wouldn’t work because the videos are too short. Julianna, not wanting to get into an argument, agreed they would use YouTube. David proposed that they use the garage at David’s house for a gym and recording
studio. David arranged his garage as a recording studio with some trendy wall decorations and padded
mats. The next day Julianna moved her laptop, video-recording equipment and gym equipment (worth approximately $6,000) to the studio at which time she said: “this will come in handy for our videos.”
Besides this, they did not do anything to formally register the business or document the nature of their commercial relationship. Over the next few weeks, they developed a kung-fu inspired personal fitness instruction series comprising twenty x 10-minute short videos which they posted to their You Tube channel. The You Tube Channel was initially successful, and over a period of three months they gained 1,000 subscribers. As a result, they were able to monetise their You Tube channel with advertising revenue. Over the next three months, they generated approximately $4,000 in advertising revenue, which sat in a Google AdSense account.
Despite their moderate success, enthusiasm began to wane, and some problems emerged. David discovered that Julianna had been re-editing videos as memes with catchy music and posting them on TikTok. Julianna’s videos were an instant hit and one of her videos went “viral”. She used this
opportunity to generate an additional income stream, which she kept to herself. David confronted Julianna via text message and the following SMS chat transpired:
David: How much money have you made from the TikTok videos? Where’s my share?
Julianna: You don’t own me ... I can do what I want. You wanted to stick to You Tube with its

super-long videos. TikTok is my thing.

David: I don’t think so, you can’t do that without telling me!
Julianna: Whatever ...

After this, Julianna decided that she no longer wanted to have anything to do with David. The next day
Julianna met David in his garage-recording studio, and the following conversation transpired:
Julianna: I am totally over this ... I don’t need you. I’m doing my own thing.
David: You can’t do that, we are partners. You need to pay me half of the money you made

from the TikTok videos.

Julianna: I don’t think so boomer. I am done here.
Julianna then started loading the equipment she had previously brought to David’s garage studio and began loading in her car. While this was happening, David yelled at Julianna and said: “that property belongs to the business, you can’t just take it!” Juliana simply ignored David, finished loading the equipment into her car, and then made a rude gesture at David as she drove off.
Based on this information, you need to use the IRAC method to answer each of these questions:
A. Did a partnership ever exist between David and Julianna? For questions B and C, you should assume that a partnership does exist.
B. Is Julianna liable to pay David half of the money she earned from the TikTok videos.
C. Is the equipment Julianna brought to David’s garage partnership property?

4) Hints

- The “Issues” have been broadly identified for you in the questions. You need to think about how to clearly phrase them in your answer and also what facts are relevant to those issues.
- Before attempting to answer the questions, read the Partnership Act and identify the relevant sections. You should start with the relevant legislation. Case law can be added to the analysis where it assists with your interpretation of the legislation.
- Do not quote large sections of the legislation. As a guide, only quote the most pertinent aspects. You should keep long quotations (three lines or more) to a minimum.
- Answer each question separately using the IRAC method.
- Please have a look at the marking rubric on the following page. Your assignment will be marked in accordance with this guide.