Case ID: mass_18/html/0268-01.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

Ex Parte Hall.
    By an extraordinary promotion in the militia, no officer is superseded, except the one, who, in the ordinary course of promotion, would have succeeded to the vacant office.
    Hall was an ensign in a militia company; and while he was in commission, one Bacon, a private soldier in the same company, was chosen and commissioned to fill a vacancy in the office of captain. Hall then resigned and was honorably discharged. After this he was warned to do duty as a private, and was sentenced by a justice of the peace to pay a fine for non-appearance. Upon which he brought his petition for a certiorari to the justice.
    Churchill, for the petitioner, referred to St. 1809, c. 108, § 1.
   The opinion of the Court was delivered at February term 1823.

Per Curiam.

The only way to ascertain the sense of the legislature in using the word supersede, is, to learn the military sense in which the word is commonly used; for in the enac-tment of laws, when terms of art or peculiar phrases are made use of, it must be supposed that the legislature have in view the subject matter about which such terms or phrases are commonly employed. Now, in a military sense, to be superseded means to have one put in the place, which, by the ordinary course of military promotion, belongs to another ; and this definition is natural and consistent with the common understanding of the term. Indeed,' there seems to be a necessity for giving this construction, if we would prevent a total derangement of the militia; for if a more extensive meaning should be given to the term supersede, as contended for, then at any time when a major-general, brigadier-general or colonel is taken from the ranks, every officer in the division, brigade, or regiment, would have a right to resign ; which could not have been intended.

Petition dismissed.