Case ID: mass_6/html/0363-02.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Parsons, C. J.,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

* The Inhabitants of Buckfield, Plaintiffs in Error, versus The Inhabitants of Gorham.
    When a plantation is made a town by incorporation, the inhabitants gain a settlement therein, and, of course, lose any former settlement they may have had.
    When the overseers of the poor apply to the Common Pleas for the removal of a pauper, they act as mere agents of the town; and if they fail, costs may be taxed for the respondents against the town.
    Where a complaint alleges the settlement of a pauper to be in B., it is not a material error, if the court adjudge the settlement to be not in B., but in the town in whose behalf the complaint is made.
    
      This writ of error was brought to reverse a judgment of the Court of Common Pleas for the county of Oxford, which was rendered upon the complaint of the overseers of the poor for the town of Buckfield, alleging that Sarah Irish, the widow of John Irish, deceased, a pauper, had become chargeable to the town of Buckfield, and that her legal settlement was in Gorham, in the county of Cumberland. The court below adjudged the settlement of the pauper to be in Buckfield, and awarded costs to Gorham, to be paid by the inhabitants of Buckfield.
    
    From the statement of the facts made by the Common Pleas, it appears that the settlement of the pauper is derived from her deceased husband; that he, with his wife, removed, about the year 1750, from Portland to Gorham, then a plantation, but afterwards, in October, 1764, incorporated as a town ; that they continued to live there until about the year 1783, when they removed to Buck-field, then a plantation called Buckstown, where they lived five or six years, then removed back to Gorham, where they lived until the year 1791, when they returned to Buckstown, and there continued until January, 1796, Buckstown having, in March, 1793, while they dwelt there, been incorporated and made the town of Buckfield. Some other facts are mentioned, which are here omitted, as they appeared to have no influence on the opinion of the Court.
    Three exceptions were taken to the judgment, one which went to the merits, and two which went only to the form of the judgment.
    1. It was insisted by the plaintiffs in error, that, on the facts, the pauper’s settlement was legally in Gorham, and therefore that the judgment was erroneous.
    2. Costs are awarded against the inhabitants of Buckfield, who were not parties to the process; but the overseers of [*446 ] * the poor of the town, and not the inhabitants, were the complainants.
    3- The court below have rendered judgment, that the pauper’s settlement was in Buckfield; whereas, if the facts stated negatived the allegations in the complaint, the judgment ought not to have gone further than that the pauper’s settlement was not in Gorham, leaving Buckfield. to find any other legal settlement for her.
   Parsons, C. J.,

delivered the opinion of the Court.

The inhabitants of Buckfield have sued this writ of error to obtain a reversal of the judgment complained of, pursuant to the statute of 1793, c. 59, which gives this writ, and which authorizes this Court, if the judgment below be erroneous, to render such judgment as the Common Pleas ought to have given, with costs for the party prevailing. Three objections are made to the judgment.

The place of the pauper’s settlement is the subject of the first objection. As John Irish, the husband of the pauper, was an inhabitant of the plantation of Gorham, when, in 1764, it was incorporated and made the town of Gorham, he, with all the other inhabitants of the plantation, became, on the incorporation, settled in Gorham; and unless he afterwards gained a new settlement, his widow’s settlement must be in that town. The husband and wife were, in 1793, inhabitants of the plantation of Buckstoum, when it was incorporated and made the town of Buckfield: therefore, on the same principle on which he was once settled in Gorham, he then lost that settlement by acquiring a new settlement in Buckfield It is not stated that after the incorporation of Buckfield, either the man or his wife ever lived in Gorham. This latter town, therefore, was not the last settlement of the husband, or of his widow, the pauper ; and judgment was correctly rendered against Buckfield.

The second objection is, that costs are awarded against the plaintiffs in error, who were not parties. It is true that at the commencement of the record it is recited, that the overseers of the poor of Buckfield are the complainants ; *but the [*447 ] overseers are not a corporation, like the church-wardens of a parish in England. They are the mere agents of the town by whom they are chosen, and, as such, could only prefer this complaint. When, therefore, the overseers complain, it is the complaint of the town by the overseers. Certainly it might have been more technically regular to state, that the inhabitants of the town complained by their overseers. But when we look farther into the record, we find the inhabitants of Buckfield recognize themselves to be parties to the complaint; for when the inhabitants of Gorham, in bar of the complaint, plead that the settlement of the pauper is not in that town, the replication is by the inhabitants of Buckfield, who aver her settlement to be as alleged in the complaint, and pray their damages and costs. This irregularity, therefore, if any, being merely formal, and occasioned by the inaccuracy of the complaint, is not an error, for which the judgment ought to be reversed.

The third objection we consider as mere form, because this judgment, as it now stands, could not avail any other town prosecuted by Buckfield, as the last settlement of the pauper. And were we to reverse the judgment on this ground, we should immediately enter a new judgment, that the settlement of the pauper is not in Gorham; and we should award costs for that town, as the merits of the case are with Gorham, who has prevailed in this suit. But the same effect is substantially produced by the judgment in its present form. The informality, therefore, on which this objection is rested, is not error, on which the judgment, substantially right, can be reversed.

Mellen for the plaintiffs in error.

Hopkins for the defendants in error.

Let the judgment be affirmed, with costs for the defendants in °rror.