I've been pulling my hair out trying to do this liquidation problem.
I did it in a spreadsheet but since I can upload excel files, I hosted a picture of it.
My answers were from 15,000 to 27,000 but I doubt thats even close.

They had assets of:
Cash 25,000
Non Cash assets of 14,000 (as that is what they sold the 74K for)

Total 39,000

That leaves 11,000 left.

The payment of that goes

2 James: 1 Sonia: 1 Erica

11,000 / 4 = 2,750

Therefore, Erica and Sonia each pat 2,750 for the shortfall where James pays 5,500


Not sure if that is correct or what, I might have misinterpreted what “noncash assets were sold at $14,000”.

Now I am doubting myself because how can there be any cash left in the business?

Unless….

Each partner paid their portion of the 50,000 liability.

So,
James paid 50,000/4*2 = $25,000
And Sonia and Erica each paid $12,500

Then they go to divide the cash of 25,000 + 14,000 = 39,000
So James gets 39,000/4*2 = $19,500
And Sonia and Eric each get $9,750

That still gives the same result as above though:
James = 19,500 – 25,000 = -5,500
Sonia = 9,750 – 12,500 = -2,750
Erica = 9,750 – 12,500 = -2,750

I think that the noncash assets statement could be interpreted as "sold for $14,000”. I think its the same thing but I noticed thats the term Acct books used.
Thanks for the explanation. Accounting isn't that much of a pain, but its just the book only has a one page example on liquidation. The Fundamental Accounting Principles book sucks.
This is what I used to guide me.
Liquidation of a partnership = termination (http://www.waycross.edu/faculty/bsmith/acct%20note%208.htm)

So all the partners were in the red? Damn, I'm worse at acct than I thought.