Case ID: mass_11/html/0206-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      Per Curiam.\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

John Brown versus The Inhabitants of the County of Somerset.
    An action against the inhabitants of a county may be brought to the Court of Common Pleas holden for the same county.
    This was an action of assumpsit, brought in the county of Sontr erset, upon sundry orders drawn by a committee appointed by the Court of Common Pleas for the county of Somerset, in June, 1811, to superintend the making a highway through certain unincorporated lands in said county, upon the county treasurer, in the plaintiff’s favor, dated March 24, 1813, and by him refused.
    The cause was tried upon the general issue, at the last October term in this county, before Parker, J., when a verdict was taken for the plaintiff, subject to the opinion of the Court, upon two objections made by the defendants, viz.: 1. That the action was not rightly brought in the county of Somerset, upon which they moved that the action should be dismissed; 2. That the orders declared on were drawn by a committee appointed by the Court of Common Pleas, in June, 1811, and the powers of that court, [ * 222 ] touching the subject of * roads having been transferred to the Court of Sessions, before the said orders were drawn, the said committee had no authority to draw the same.
    
      Bond, for the defendants,
    insisted that it was against the common principles of equity that a party should be a judge in his own cause; and to this he cited the express decision of this Court in the similar case of Hawkes vs. The Inhabitants of the County of Kennebeck. 
      , 
    
    
      Boutell for the plaintiff.
    He also argued that the Court, which authorized the committee to draw the orders on which the action was brought, having ceased to exist, the powers of the committee had ceased also ; as, upon the death of an individual, the authority of his agent ceases.
    
      
       7 Mass. Rep. 461.
    
    
      
      
         And see Gage vs. Gannett & Al. 10 Mass. Rep. 170, and note__Inhab of County of Lincoln vs. Prince, 2 Mass. Rep. 544.
    
   Per Curiam.

The case of a court is different from that of individual citizens. One court succeeds another, and takes, by statute, all the powers and authorities of its predecessor. The decision in Hawkes’s case was grounded upon the test of the writ; although the reasoning of the chief justice, in delivering the opinion of the Court, supports the objection made by the defendants’ counsel, grounded upon that decision.

Judgment according to the verdict. 
      
       Vide Stat. 1809, c. 127.