Case ID: mass_7/html/0316-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "* Per Curiam..\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Aaron Porter versus Ebenezer Sayward.
    In debt for an escape of one committed upon execution, the plaintiff is entitled to recover the whole sum for which the prisoner was held.
    Debt against the defendant, under-keeper of the jail in Alfred, in this county, for the escape of one Theodore Beal, a prisoner committed in execution at the plaintiffs suit.
    On the trial of the cause before Thatcher, J., at the last November term in this county, the plaintiff having proved the judgment, execution, commitment, and escape of Beal, and that the escape was by the permission and consent of the defendant; this latter moved the judge to be permitted to give evidence, that Beal, at the time of the commitment and escape, was wholly destitute of property, and had so continued to the time of the trial. The judge refused to admit the evidence ; and the jury returned a verdict for the sum due on the execution.
    The defendant excepted to the decision of the judge, and the cause stood over to this term upon the said exceptions.
   * Per Curiam..

The evidence offered at the trial was very properly refused. It has been holden, ever since the statute of Wesim. 2, that an action of debt lies against a jailer for an escape of a prisoner in execution ; and that in such action the plaintiff is entitled to recover from the jailer the amount w-hich was due to him from the prisoner. And this provision of the law is perfectly reasonable in cases of voluntary escape, as the one in was to be.

Let judgment be entered on the verdict

Vide 2 D. & E. 126, Bonafous vs. Walker. — 2 W Black. 1048 Hawkins vs. Plomer.