Case ID: yeates_2/html/0022-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

William Pinchon against Sharpe Delaney, Esq.
    Assumpsit for services done will only lie against the employer.
    CASE. This action was brought against the defendant as collector of the customs of the port of Philadelphia. The plaintiff claimed for "his services, as one of the measurers of salt, coals and grain, from November 1789 to December 1793, and insisted that he had not received more than one half of the fees to which he was legally entitled.
    Congress, by a law passed 31st July 1789, (1 Cong. Laws, 37, § 5,) divided the departments for collection of duties on goods imported into the United States, into the offices of collectors, naval officers and surveyors, and prescribed the duties of those officers. Each collector was to employ proper persons as weighers, gaugers, measurers and inspectors, at the several ports within his district; and their fees were ascertained by the 29th section of the act, to be paid by the different collector out of the revenue.
    The same power was continued to the collectors, by another law passed 4th August 1790, (1 Cong. Laws, 220, § 6,) and the fees were increased by the 53 d section of that act.
    It appeared in evidence, that one John Grill had been appointed measurer of the port by the defendant, but that the plaintiff, with some others, had done the chief of the business, but that Grill had superintended. Their usual mode was to charge the vessel out of which the articles were unladen, and then debit Grill with their services, who commonly paid them. But it not appearing that the plaintiff had been employed or retained by the defendant, the court were of opinion, that the question whether he was entitled to the fees he claimed, as actual measurer, could riot be tried in the present suit, but in an action against Grill, and therefore directed a nonsuit.
    Messrs. M. Levy and M’Kean, pro quer.
    
    Messrs. Lewis and Rawle, pro def.