Case ID: nh_7/html/0251-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Richardson, C. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

The Town of Gilford vs. The Town of Newmarket.
    No action can be maintained against a town for expenses incurred in the support of a pauper until notice of such expenses has been given to such town. Notice of other expenses, previously incurred in the support of such pauper, is not sufficient.
    Assumpsit for the support of R. and S. Pickering, paupers, settled in Newmarket, from the 23d May, 1826, to 1st February, 1832, amounting to $727 12. The action was commenced on the 10th May, 1833.
    The cause was submitted to the decision of the court upon the following facts.
    R. Pickering and S. Pickering became paupers on the 4th March, 1826, and have ever since, to the time of their deaths in 1831 or 1832, been supported by the town of Gilford. On the 23d May, 1826, the overseers of the poor in Gilford made out a notice, directed to the town of Newmarket, stating that the said paupers, and one Winthrop Pickering, who was the husband of the said R. Pickering and the father of the said S. Pickering, were paupers, and that the town of Gilford had expended for their support, from the 4th March, 1826, to the 22d May, in that year, $59 82.
    The said notice was served upon the town of Newmarket on the'29th May, . 1826, and returned to the court of common pleas, in Rockingham, June 3d, 1826.
    On the- 22d November, 1826,'the town of Gilford commenced an action against the town of Newmarket, to recover the. said sum of- ⅛$59 -82, and such proceedings were had in.that, suit, that at the superior court holden at Rochester, on the first Tuesday of March, 1833, judgment was-rendered in favor of - Gilford, to recover ($'50' damages and costs of suit. ' -
    .No other notice in relation to said paupers has ever been given by Gilford- to Newmarket than the notice ahove stated.
    The paupersAad their legal settlement in Newmarket.
    Lyford, for the plaintiffs..
    
      Stickney and Bartlett, for the defendants.
   By the Court,.

Richardson, C. J.

This is a very plain case. The statute. declares, that notice-in writing of the sums expended in the support of the paupers shall be given: that'no action shall be sustained, unless previous to the commencement of it shell notice shall have been given : ' and that no action shall be sustained unless commenced within three years from the time of the service of- the notice.

No action can be maintained for any expenses incurred in. these cases, until notice of such expenses has been given. This is very obvious from the plain letter of the' statute. In this case, no notice of the expenses stated in the declaration has ever been given. • This is decisive against the plaintiff. 10 Pick. 150; 4 do. 358; 12 Mass, R. 316; 14 do. 186.

Judgment for the defendants.*