Case ID: mass_38/html/0333-01.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 Whitmarsh versus Phillips Curtis.
    
      Nov. 1st.
    
      Nov. 2d.
    A notification to a soldier in the militia to appear at a company muster, is insufficient, if it do not express the hour, as well as the day, on which he is required to appear
    Upon a petition for a certiorari to a justice of the peace, by whom the petitioner had been fined for non-attendance at a meeting of a company of the militia, it was proved that the notification, dated in April, 1838, directed the petitioner to appear at the usual place of parade of the company “ on the first Tuesday of May next at . . . clock in the . . . noon,” no hour being expressed.
    Kingsbury, for the petitioner.
    Leland, for the respondent, the clerk of the company.
   Per Curiam.

The construction of the statutes relating to the militia should be as favorable to those who are subjected to the service, as may be consistent with the efficiency of the establishment. If a particular time of the day were not requisite, it would be net cssary for the soldier to attend from sunrise to sunset, to be sure of meeting the company ; which would be oppressive and unreasonable. The notice should be to the soldiers to meet on the parade ground at a certain hour, of a particular day, for the purposes set forth, or to wait the'e until further orders, as is the usage in some places.

And we believe that there has been a practical construction consistent with this opinion, ever since the establishment of the militia. Notice of the time and place of training or meeting of the company is to be given ; and as to the time, not only the day, but the particular hour of the day, should be expressed in the notification.

Certiorari granted.