Case ID: johns_11/html/0167-01.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

Crouse against Mabbett and Tripp, Overseers of the Poor, &c.
    
    NEW-YORK,
    May, 1814.
    Overseers of iiaveexpended an°ordJei-oftro justices, for the maintenance oí & pauper, canactim^oiT’"*™ pereonS^vho & brought the the^tmvn^haIé?§ementeSfo state, for expended; but. ¡s e’undermthe statute> (ses|1 Jf. a. L. TCr"the°penaity given in such case.
    IN ERROR, on certiorari, from a justice’s court. Mabbett and Tripp sued Crouse before the justice, and declared against him, that he, without any lawful authority, brought into the town of Washington one William Brown, a pauper, having no settle- ..... , ment there, or within this state; that the pauper fell sick, and was supported by them, the plaintiffs, as overseers, &c. under an order of two justices of the peace, until the death of the pauper, at the expense of about twenty dollars; and that the defendant well knew, Sec. the facts set forth. Plea, general issue, The return stated that the plaintiffs proved all the material aliegations in their declaration. The defendant offered to prove that Mabbett, one of the plaintiffs, had said that there was property enough left by Brown, after his death, in the town of Washington, to defray all the expenses; but this evidence being objected to, was overruled by the justice, and a judgment given for the plaintiffs for 20 dollars, with costs.
   Per Curiam.

This judgment must be reversed. There is no principle of the common law on which the action can be maintained. The statute for the relief and settlement of the poor, (sess. 36. c. 78. s. 8. 1 N. R. L. 279.) subjects to a penalty any inhabitant who shall receive and entertain, for the space of fifteen days, any person who has not gained a settlement in some city or town in the state, without giving notice thereof, in writing, to one of the overseers of the poor, &c. But this action was not brought on the statute, and cannot be sustained.

Judgment reversed.