Case ID: me_3/html/0205-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mellen, C. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

The Inhabitants of Dixmont vs. The Inhabitants of Biddeford.
    Supplies furnished to a woman as a pauper, without the knowledge of her husband, she living apart from him, — are not supplies received by him, as a pauper, within the meaning of Stat. 1821, eh. 122, sec. 2.
    This was assumpsit for tbe support of Celia Basford, a pauper, wife of John Basford, from Jan. 23,1821, to Jlpril 2,1822; — and came before the Court upon exceptions taken by the defendants to the opinion of Smith J. in the Court below.
    At the trial in the Court of Common Pleas, the plaintiffs, to prove the marriage of the pauper, offered a witness who was present at the marriage about twenty years ago, and that it was celebrated before one of two magistrates whom he named, but he could not recollect which; — and that the parties afterwards cohabited as man and wife, at least a dozen years, when the husband abandoned her, and had since provided her nothing.
    Another witness testified that Basford lived in Biddeford in March 1821, and for years before, under the assumed name of John Byfield.
    
    Another witness being sent by the plaintiffs, called on the assessoi’s of Biddeford, and asked for a certified copy of their assessments of taxes against By field, which they refused to give ; but permitted the witness to take extracts from the books, shewing the taxes assessed on his poll and estate in possession, which was valued at more than two hundred dollars, from 1814 to 1820, which he produced and verified on the trial.
    The opinion of the Judge upon this evidence was that the marriage was fully proved, and that the husband’s settlement was in Biddeford, and a verdict was returned for the plaintiffs accordingly.
    
      McGaw, in support of the exceptions.
    The proof of the marriage ought not to have been received. It was not the best evidence which the case would admit. The witness not being able to recollect any thing distinctly respecting it, the certificate of the officiating magistrate ought to have been produced.
    
      But if the marriage be proved, yet it does not appear that the husband ever gained a settlement in Biddeford by virtue of any law of Massachusetts, nor even that he paid taxes any one of the years of his residence there.
    Nor did he acquire a settlement there under the particular provision of St at. 1821, ch. 122, fixing the settlement of every citizen at the place where his domicil then was; because he was within the exception in the same clause, by having received supplies as a pauper within a year then next preceding. All the relief furnished by overseers of the poor, is upon the credit of the town in which the pauper had a settlement; and the town has a remedy over against the husband or other relative bound to support the person relieved. Wherever therefore the wife is thus assisted, it is virtually by the town where the husband is settled; —and being constructively assistance to him, he is brought within the exception in the statute.
    Brown, for the plaintiffs,
    — being stopped by the Court from arguing as to the evidence of the marriage, — contended that the husband acquired a settlement in Biddeford under the fifth method pointed out in Stat. 1793, ch. 34, being taxed five years successively for an estate valued at more than sixty pounds. The evidence of this fact was the best the case would admit. The certificate of the town clerk would have been sufficient, but the means of obtaining it were withheld by the defendants themselves. But the evidence under oath of any other person to the truth of a copy which he has actually compared with the original, is of equal solemnity. Buttrick v. Mien 8 Mass. 213. Nor was it necessary that the taxes should appear to have been paid. West-brook v. Gorham 15 Mass. 160.
    But he also gained a settlement there by virtue of his residence in Biddeford, March 21, 1821, when the statute of this State was enacted. The supplies to his wife make no difference in the case. He had abandoned her for many years, was himself in possession of a decent estate, and had no knowledge of her situation. If relief administered in this manner to the wife or child of any man, brings him within the meaning of the word pauper, in the statute; then the most wealthy citizen may become such without his knowledge, and himself may be liable to be sent to the almshouse, and his children to be bound as apprentices, under the other sections of the statute.
   Mellen, C. J.

at the ensuing August term in Oxford, delivered the opinion of the Court as follows.

The exception as to the testimony admitted to prove the marriage cannot be sustained. The witness saw the marriage solemnized; and as one or the other of the magistrates named, performed the ceremony, it is of no importance which. As to the admission and the effect of the evidence offered to prove a settlement by the assessment of taxes, it is unnecessary to examine, or give any opinion, because we are satisfied that the husband of the pauper gained a settlement in Biddeford, by residing and having his home in that town on the 21st of March 1821. His wife, the pauper, had for many years lived separate from him, and in a different part of the country; and therefore, though she received supplies from Dixmont during the year next preceding, still that did not prevent the husband’s gaining the settlement in Biddeford; and there she has her settlement also. The reasons on which our opinion is founded, are stated at large in the case of Green v. Buckfeld [ante p. 136,] to which we refer.

Judgment affirmed.