Case ID: mass_16/html/0049-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Parker, C. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

* John Dillingham, Executor, &c., versus Stephen Burgis and Others.
    in an act incorporating a town, it was provided that certain remonstrants against the incorporation, who lived within the limits of the new town, should remain with their families to the town from which the new one was taken, upon their leaving their names in the secretary’s office within two years. It was hoi den that the privilege thus granted was personal to the remonstrants, and did not remain to their descendants.
    By an act of the commonwealth, passed the 19th of February, 1803, “to divide the town of Harwich, and to incorporate the northerly part thereof into a separate town by the name of Brewster,” it was among other things provided, “ that the remonstrants to this act of incorporation, who live in the north parish, and who shall request it, shall have liberty to remain, with their families and estates, to the town of Harwich, by leaving their names in the secretary’s office at any time within two years from the date of this act of incorporation, certifying that such is their intention.”
    This action was commenced by the plaintiff, as executor of Thomas Snow, against the defendants, assessors of the town of Harwich, for illegally assessing a tax upon the said Snow’s estate after his decease. No objection was made to the tax, but what arose out of the above provision of the act for incorporating the town of Brewster. And as to this, it was agreed that the said Snow lived in the north parish of Harwich at the time of passing said act; that he, as a remonstrant, complied with the terms prescribed therein ; that he and his estate had from that time until his decease been taxed by the assessors of Harwich ; that his estate had been returned, in the last valuation of taxable property in the state, as belonging to Harwich; that he devised his estate to his son and grandson, who continued to reside upon and to occupy the same until the commencement of this action; and that the same estate has been taxed by the assessors of the town of Brewster since the death of Snow, for the same year, which tax has been paid by the plaintiff.
    The question upon these facts, which was submitted to the [ * 59 ] decision of the Court, was, whether the land of Snow * continued to make a part of Harwich, and so liable to be taxed by that town, after his decease.
    
      Thomas, for the plaintiff.
    
      Davis, Solicitor-General, for the defendants.
   Parker, C. J.

The privilege, secured by the act of incorporation of Brewster, to those who remonstrated against it, was undoubtedly personal. It was intended to quiet the complaint of persons then in being, and actually making complaints. The words of the provision show this intention ; and if there were any ambiguity, we should incline to adopt this construction, as the one least prejudicial to the interests of both towns. It must be exceedingly embarrassing to have estates within the limits of a town, subject to the jurisdiction of another town; and it ought not to be continued, after the cause of so strange a provision has ceased. All the reasons suggested by the Court in the case of Kingsbury vs. Slack Al. apply, with more force in this case, to demand the construction we have given, that the privilege granted was personal to the remonstrants.

Defendants defaulted 
      
       8 Mass. Rep. 154.