Case ID: njl_3/html/0222-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "By the Court.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

BROOKS against FARMER.
    .OX CERTIORARI.
    Penalty for enticing apprentice, extends not to slaves.
    The action below, was an action of debt, brought for a penalty under the sixth section of the act respecting apprentices and servants; for enticing away the servant of the plaintiff below, the defendant in this court; who obtained a verdict and judgment for $30, the penalty given by the act. It appeared by the proceedings below, that the servant enticed, or persuaded [*] from his master, was slave for life. That the justice, notwithstanding, sustained the action, as he himself states in his record, “ that although all servants were not slaves, he considered all slaves as servants.”
   By the Court.

The justice has mistaken the law; the act respecting apprentices and servants, cannot, in any shape, be construed as extending to slaves; the penalty created by that act for persuading and enticing away any clerk, apprentice, or servant, does not embrace the case of slaves; it must be confined to the subject matter of the act, which is wholly aside from slaves; besides, the act respecting slaves, has made provision on the same subject by creating a penalty for employing, harboring, or concealing a slave.

Judgment reversed.