Case ID: ohio-st_41/html/0280-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      McCauley, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

McGary v. Bevington.
    A proceeding in bastardy may be maintained in this state under chapter 3, title 1, division 7, Revised Statutes, by an unmarried woman, the mother of a bastard child, notwithstanding the child was begotten and born in another state, and the mother and child never were residents of, Ohio. .
    Error to the District Court of Columbiana County.
    This was a proceeding in bastardy in the common pleas. Upon the trial there the case was submitted upon an agreed statement of facts in substance: that on the 30th day of May, 1880, Marjr A. Bevington, an unmarried woman, was a resident of Beaver County, Pennsylvania, and on that day she became pregnant with a bastard child of which the defendant is the father; that on the 25th day of October, 1880, she came to Columbiana County, where the defendant then resided and where he resided at the time of his trial, and made her complaint in bastardy, and after the arrest and recognizance of the defendant, returned to her home in Pennsylvania; that the bastard child of the complainant was born on the 2d day of March, 1881, and that the complainant and her child still reside in Pennsylvania, and that she came to Columbiana County for the purpose of prosecuting the proceeding.
    The defendant thereupon confessed that the charge of the complainant was true as set forth in the statement of facts; but moved the court to dismiss the proceeding for the reason that the facts, so agreed upon, do not make a case .in which the complainant can maintain the proceeding.
    • The court sustained the motion and dismissed the proceeding. This action of the common pleas was reversed by the district court, and the proceeding here is to reverse the judgment of reversal.
    
      R. W. Taylor, for plaintiff in error.
    The purpose of the statute is to provide for the maintenance of the child in order that the State may be freed from any liability for its support. If the State has no interest in the support of the bastard child, the statute is inoperative so far as that child is concerned.
    This is shown—
    1. By the title of the various statutes which have been enacted, viz: “For the maintenance and support of illegitimate children.”
    It is not an act provided for the prosecution of a civil suit for damages — nor to permit the aggrieved female to pursue any remedy she might have under the common law.
    2. An examination of the decisions of the supreme court sustain the proposition laid down. If the State, or some political division of the State, has no interest, the protection of the statute cannot be invoked. Hawes v. Cooksey, 18 Ohio, 245; Perkins v. Mobley, 4 Ohio St., 669; Musser v. Stewart, 21 Ohio St., 356.
    For the legislation on the subject see Section 1 of the Bastardy Act of 1834; Act of April 13, 1873 (74 Ohio Laws, 111) ; Act of February 1, 1877 (70 Ohio Laws, 11) , Rev. Stats., §§ 5614, 5615, 5616, 5617, 5618, 5637, 5638.
    For what purpose could the bond required by the Act of 1880 (Rev. Stats.) be given when the child lived in a foreign State ?
    It is too violent a presumption to suppose that the child of a non-resident may become a charge upon the State of Ohio or any part thereof. No township, municipal corporation or county in this State is interested in its prosecution.
    The child’s parent is a non-resident of this State, and the child was begotten in a foreign State. The defendant was required to enter into a bond to the State of Ohio. Pray, what right has the State of Ohio to require a bond for the benefit of itself for an act committed in a foreign State, relating to a resident of a foreign State, who. always had lived and still is living in that foreign State ? The interest of the State of Ohio in the matter is absolutely nothing.
    
      H. R. Hill, for defendant in error.
    Prior to the change made by the Act of 1873 the statute provided “ That on complaint made to any justice of the peace in this State, by an unmarried woman resident therein, who shall hereafter be delivered of a bastard child, &c.” S. & C., page 176.
    The Act of 1873 provided “ That when any unmarried woman, who has been delivered of, or is pregnant with a bastard child, shall make complaint thereof in writing under oath, before any justice of the peace, &c.” 70 Ohio Laws, 111.
    It seems that it was clearly a purpose in the enactment of the latter statute to authorise “ any unmarried woman ” to file her complaint and obtain the relief contemplated by the Act, as the words limiting the right to maintain the action to unmarried women resident in this State were undoubtedly purposely omitted from the latter Act.
    Section 5614 of the Revised Statutes now in force and under which this case was brought does not limit the right to make complaint to unmarried women resident in this State. It provides “ when an unmarried woman, who has been delivered of or is pregnant with a bastard child, makes complaint thereof in writing, under'oath, before any justice of the peace, &e.”
    The statute as it reads would seem to determine this case without argument.
    The Act is not for the benefit of the mother, and her place of residence has no bearing upon its object and purpose. The Act is for the benefit of the child, and the obligation of the father to contribute to its maintenance is the same no matter where the child is maintained. Carter v. Krise, 9 Ohio St., 405; 4 Ohio St., 669; 21 Ohio St., 356 ; Cottrell v. Slate, 9 Neb., 125.
   McCauley, J.

The bastardy act of February 2, 1824, Swan’s Statutes, 124, provided, “that on complaint made to any justice of the peace in this state by any unmarried woman resident therein,” the justice should issue his warrant for the arrest of the accused. This statute in terms required that the complainant should be a resident of the state. Subsequent sections of the statute provided for giving bond to the trustees of the township in which the child was born conditioned that it shall not become a township charge. In 1873, 70 Ohio Law, 111, this statute was so changed as to provide, “ that when any unmarried woman who has been delivered of, or who is pregnant with a bastard child, shall make complaint thereof in writing under oath before a justice of the peace,” the justice shall issue his warrant for the arrest of the accused. And the second section provided that when the person accused was arrested and brought before the justice, a compromise might be made by the complainant and the accused, and that when “the party accused shall pay or secure to be paid to the complainant such sum of money, or other property as she may agree to receive in full satisfaction, and shall further give bond to the trustees of the township in which such complainant shall reside, conditioned to save such township free from all charges towards the maintenance of said child, the justice shall discharge the party accused out of custody.”

The fourth section of this act preserves the local nature of the proceeding by the provision that in a . certain case, the justice may bind the accused in a recognizance to appear at the next term of the court of common pleas in a sum not less than three hundred dollars nor more than six hundred dollars, for the benefit of the township in which such bastard child shall be born, to answer such accusation. The second, third, and fourth sections of this act are similar to corresponding sections of the act of 1824. And while the requirement that the complainant shall be a resident of the state is left out of the first section, the local features of the act in other respects remain.

The Revised Statutes, sections 5614-5638, have none of the local features of the older statutes. The complaint maybe made by an unmarried woman who has been delivered of, or who is pregnant with a bastard child. All recognizances for the appearance of the accused party, and all security for the maintenance and support of the child are required to be given for the benefit of any county, township, or municipal corporation within the state in which such bastard child may become a charge. This radical change of a statute which authorized a proceeding to be commenced only by a resident of the state, and in which 'many of the objects of the proceeding were for the benefit of the township in which the mother resided, or in which the child was born, into a proceeding without limitation as to residence of the complainant, and in which the remedies provided are for any locality that may become interested in the support of the child has enlarged its application to any case in which jurisdiction of the defendant or his property may be had within the state. Casting off the limitations that formerly surrounded the proceeding is only following the changes in the statutes.

Residence in the state, when the cause of action arose, or when proceedings are commenced is not necessary to maintain any other kind of action or proceeding. In many cases the same action or proceeding may be maintained in any state, depending altogether upon what the faót is as to the place where the defendant may be summoned or jurisdiction otherwise acquired of the person. If the complainant in bastardy, although the child was begotten and born in another state, and the mother and child still remain residents of such state, can, by coming into this state, get jurisdiction of the defendant under our statute, there is nothing in the statutes, nor in the reason or purpose of the proceeding to hinder her from maintaining the proceeding here.

Judgment affirmed.