Case ID: pa-super_4/html/0573-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Per Curiam,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Overseers of the Poor of Fermanagh Township v. The Overseers of the Poor of Milford Township, Appellants.
    
      Poor law — Presumption as findings of facts by court below.
    
    In cases arising out of the removal of paupei's the appellate court will presume that the findings of fact by the court of quarter sessions are correct provided they are warranted by the evidence. This g'eneral rule is only departed from where manifest error has been committed.
    
      Evidence — Self contradiction of witness.
    
    Self contradiction by a witness affords no ground for rejecting his testimony in toto; it is for the court below, in pauper removal cases, to determine the weight to be given to his testimony.
    Argued March 12, 1897.
    Appeal, No. 35, March T., 1897, by defendants, from findings and decree of Q. S. Juniata County, December Sess., 1895, No. 1, upon appeal from the order of removal of Mahala Carter and children.
    April 19, 1897:
    Before Rice, P. J., Willard, Wickham, Beaver, Reeder, Orlady and Smith, JJ.
    Affirmed.
    Appeal from order of removal of Mahala Carter and children. Before Lyons, P. J.
    An order of removal was had by the Overseers of Fermanagh Township Poor District to remove Mahala Carter, wife of Oliver Carter and her three children, Eva, Herbert and John to the poor district of Milford township. From this order of removal the Milford township overseers appealed.
    The court found that Oliver Carter had a settlement in Milford township at the time of his birth and that he never gained a settlement elsewhere; that his wife Mahala therefore had a settlement in said Milford township ; that of the three children of Mahala one only, Herbert, was a son of Oliver. The order of removal was confirmed as to Mahala and Herbert Carter and discharged as to Eva and John.
    Counsel for Fermanagh township presented points of fact and law, some of which were affirmed and some refused.
    The only exception was as follows : “ And now, September 12, 1896, counsel for Milford township excepts to the findings of facts, answers to points and decree, and at his instance this bill is sealed.”
    
      Errors assigned were to the answers to points and to decree of the court holding that Mahala and Herbert Carter had a legal settlement in Milford township, and in not discharging the order of removal.
    
      B. F. Burchfield, for appellants.
    
      George L. Hower and J. Howard Neely, for appellee.
   Per Curiam,

The findings of fact by the court of quarter sessions in this class of cases are, on appeal, presumed to be correct, provided they are warranted by the evidence. This general rule is only departed from where manifest error has been committed. The testimony submitted in this case fully sustains the findings of fact by tbe learned judge below, and his conclusions of law necessarily follow. The selfcontradiction by one of the witnesses affords no ground for rejecting his testimony in toto; it was for the court below to determine the weight to be given to his testimony under the circumstances. Nothing in the case requires review at our hands, and the decree of the court below is affirmed.