Case ID: mass_3/html/0284-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "* Sewall, J. Sedgwick, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

The Inhabitants of Shirley versus The Inhabitants of Watertown.
    A warning of a pauper and his family, under the stat. 4 W. Sf M. c. 13, § 9, is sufficient to prevent the wife and children of the pauper from gaining a settlement.
    Tr¡s was an action of assumpsit, for the support of the widow Sarah White, and Lucy, her daughter, from Nov. 9, 1801, to June 8, 1802. The action was tried before the late Chief Justice Dana, at the October term, 1805, and a verdict found for the plaintiffs. The defendants moved for a new trial, on the insufficiency of a certain warning or caution made by the selectmen of Newton, in the year 1765, pursuant to the statutes then in force. If that warning was legal and sufficient, the verdict was to stand; but if the Court should be of opinion that it was insufficient, the verdict was to be set aside, and a new trial granted; as in that case [ * 323 ] the last legal * settlement of the paupers was in Neivton, or at least not in Watertown.
    
    It appears that William, the husband of Sarah White, was living in 1765, and the warning by the constable of Newton, as directed by the selectmen, was of William White and family, without naming the individuals composing the family. Lucy, the daughter, was either not then born, or, if born, was in infancy.
    
      Bigelow, in support of the verdict,
    read from the statute of 1 W. fy M. c. 13, $ 9, under which the warning purported to have been made; and he contended that the settlement of the wife and child followed that of the husband and father. If the warning then had been of William White only, it would have been sufficient to prevent, as well his wife and child as himself, from gaining a settlement. Warning in this case implies a right to remove the persons warned to the place of their last legal settlement. The tenth section of the same statute authorizes it, if they fail to remove voluntarily by the space of fourteen days next after such warning given. Now, it is very clear that William Write could not have been removed without his wife and child, nor could they have been separated from him. The warning need not be more particular than a warrant to remove the paupers; and a warrant to remove a man would justify the removal of his wife.and infant children with him.
    
      Dana, in support of the motion for a new trial,
    relied on the words of the statute, which, amongst other things, requires the names of the persons warned to be returned by the constable to the Court of General Sessions. For aught appears in the case, Lucy White might have been emancipated, and have acquired a settlement separate from her father and mother. There ought to be sufficient certainty to exclude such a presumption. Processes of this kind are analogous to orders of removal by the Sessions, and ought to be governed by the same rules. But an order to remove A. and his family was adjudged ill for generality . So an order to remove one and his wife and family .
    
      
       2 Salk. 482.
    
    
      
       Ibid. 485.—Comb. 478.
    
   * Sewall, J.

If this had been an order of the Ses- [ * 324 ] sions, it would undoubtedly have been bad for its uncer;ainty and generality; but I think that the warning of William White prevented his acquiring a settlement in Newton; and the wife and child could have no settlement separate from him. On the •vhole, I am for entering judgment upon the verdict.

Sedgwick, J.

This action is brought to recover the amount of expenses incurred by the plaintiffs in the support and maintenance of two paupers. The jury have given a verdict in favor of the plaintiffs, and we are now moved to set aside this verdict, and grant a new trial, on the ground of the insufficiency of a certain process purporting a warning of the husband and father of these paupers from the town of Newton. If that warning was legal and sufficient, the verdict is to stand. It is presumable that Lucy was one of the family of William White at the time he was warned, and if so, the case shows nothing from which her separate settlement can be presumed. Unquestionably this warning was sufficient as it related to ■ William White, to prevent his gaining a settlement; and as his wife and daughter must derive their settlement from him, it would have been nugatory and absurd to warn them. They could not remove without him, nor tarry behind, if he removed. The warning appears to me sufficient to prevent William White, and as a necessary consequence, to prevent his wife and child from gaining a settlement; and as this is the only ground of objection to the verdict, I am in favor of entering judgment upon it .

Parsons, C. J., concurred.

Parker, J., was not in Court when this opinion was given.

Judgment according to verdict. 
      
       [Somerset vs. Dighton, 12 Mass. 383.—Ed.]