Case ID: mass_21/html/0122-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      Per Curiam.\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

John Claflin Junior, Qui tam &c., versus Carmel Cheney.
    
      Oct. 4th.
    
    The St, 1822, c, 104, § 2, requiring a collector of taxes to return to the selectmen annually, fifteen days before the first Monday in March, a list of persons from whom he shall have received payment of a state or county tax, intends that the return shall not be made more than fifteen days before such Monday.
    This was an action on St. 1822, c. 104. against the defendant as collector of taxes in Milford for the year 1824, for not returning to the selectmen a list of persons of whom he had received payment of taxes. Trial was had upon the general issue.
    By the second section it is enacted, that collectors of state or county taxes shall, annually, fifteen days before the first Monday in March, make out and deliver to the selectmen of the town in which they reside, a true and accurate list of all persons from whom they shall within the year then next preceding, have received payment of a state or county tax, specifying the time of payment, or shall exhibit and deliver to the selectmen the original account by them kept of such payment.
    It appeared that the selectmen of Milford met on the 7th of February, 1825, and that the defendant then put his tax lists into their hands, to enable them to ascertain whether persons applying to have their names put upon the list of voters had paid their taxes, and that after the selectmen had examined the tax lists sufficiently, the defendant took them again into his own possession ; and further, that the tax lists were never withheld from the selectmen when they asked for them.
    Hastings, and Hastings junior,
    contended, that the list mentioned in the statute should be delivered to the selectmen exactly fifteen days before the first Monday in March; not less, because the selectmen are required, by the aid of this list, to make out and publish lists of voters ten days before such Monday; nor more, because the object is to bring down the information 'furnished by the list, as near to that day as may be practicable.
    
      
      Oct. 9th
    
    
      Newton and Rawson, for the defendant.
   Per Curiam.

We consider fifteen days before the first Monday in March as the fixed time for returning the Hst to the selectmen, and that making the return sooner is not a compliance with the statute.

Defendant defaulted. 
      
      
         Adams v. Moulton, 7 Pick. 286.