Case ID: mass_12/html/0291-01.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

William Mitchell versus The Inhabitants of Cornville.
    No action lies for an individual against the town of a pauper’s legal settlement, for supplies furnished the pauper, unless the individual be an inhabitant of such town.
    * Assumpsit for the support of Lydia Dow, a pauper, [*333] which was tried on the general issue, before Thatcher, J., at the sittings here after June term, 1813.
    It appeared on the trial, that the pauper had a legal settlement in the town of Cornville, that she stood in need of relief, and that she was supplied by the plaintiff, who was her son-in-law, and lived in a plantation without the bounds of any incorporated town or district, not adjoining to Cornville, but to the town of Garland. The plaintiff gave notice in writing to one of the overseers of the poor of said Cornville, that the pauper needed relief, and was supported by him.
    It further appeared, that the pauper had before resided in the family of her son, Noah Dow, where she had been sufficiently provided with food, but in other respects treated with inhumanity ; that the plaintiff had taken her, at her request, from the house of said Noah to his own house, contrary to the wishes of said Noah, who pursued them the next day, and made an agreement with the plaintiff to support her at his, the said Noah’s, expense ; who also promised the plaintiff that he would still support her after the expiration of the year, if he would then bring her back to Cornville.
    A verdict was taken for the plaintiff by consent, it being agreed, if the Court, on the foregoing facts, should be of opinion that the action was maintainable, judgment should be rendered on the verdict ; otherwise, the plaintiff was to become nonsuit, and the defendants recover their costs.
    
      Gilman, for the plaintiff.
    
      Abbot, for the defendants.
   Parker, C. J.

This action cannot be supported ; the statute ' giving no right of action to an individual who undertakes to support a pauper out of the place of her settlement, against the town where be or she may be lawfully settled. The duty of an individual [*334] in such a case is, to apply * to the overseers of the town wherein the pauper may be resident; and they are obliged to furnish immediate relief, and may recover the expense from the town to which the pauper belongs ; and the individual, if such overseers shall refuse or neglect to do their duty, may recover of such town an indemnity, as is provided in the thirteenth section of the statute.

In the present case, the place of the pauper’s residence was an unincorporated plantation, and the seventh section of the statute expressly provides, that, in such case, the relief shall be furnished in the first instance by the next adjoining town, which in this case was Garland, and not Cornville.

A notice from the overseers of the town which incurs the expense, to the overseers of the town of the pauper’s settlement, being an essential prerequisite to an action, except where the person affording the relief is an inhabitant of the town which is liable, it is plain, that, under this provision of the statute, an individual cannot maintain an action, except against the town which is obliged to advance the necessary immediate relief. The remedy of one corporation against another is entirely of statute provision, and the statute must be strictly complied with to enable a party to recover ; nor can an individual have any action or remedy, but what is given by statute. The verdict in this case must, therefore, be set aside, and the plaintiff must be called.

Plaintiff nonsuit. 
      
       1 Stat. 1793, c. 59.
     
      
      
        Watson vs. Cambridge, 15 Mass. Rep. 286.