Case Name: The Inhabitants of Lanesborough versus The Inhabitants of New Ashford
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Jurisdiction: Massachusetts
Decision Date: 1827-09
Citations: 5 Pick. 190
Docket Number: 
Parties: The Inhabitants of Lanesborough versus The Inhabitants of New Ashford.
Judges: 
Reporter: Massachusetts Reports
Volume: 22
Pages: 190–191

Head Matter:
The Inhabitants of Lanesborough versus The Inhabitants of New Ashford.
P. Baxter, a pauper, known in the town of L. by the name of P. La Barron, was called, in a notice from that town to the town of N., P. Labem, and N. after ascertaining what person was intended, returned an answer that P. Labem had not a settlement in N. Held, that the notice was insufficient.
Assumpsit to recover expenses incurred by the plaintiffs in supporting a pauper.
The jury found specially, that the name by which Patty Baxter, the pauper, was called in the notice of Lanesborough to New Ashford, was Patty Labem; that she was not known in New Ashford, prior to the notice, by the name of Patty La Barron as a matter of general reputation ; that prior to the notice she was known by general reputation in Lanesborough by that name; that before the notice was answered, New Ashford, by partial previous knowledge and by diligent inquiry after the notice, ascertained that the notice was intended to apply to Patty Baxter ; that the pauper was married to John La Barron, but the marriage was illegal and void ; that she was the wife of Allen Baxter, and through him had ac quired a settlement in New Ashford ; and that New Ashford returned an answer, in due season, denying the settlement ol Patty Labem to be in that town. If upon these facts judgment ought to be rendered for the plaintiffs, the jury found for them, &c., otherwise for the defendants.
Hubbard and Briggs, for the plaintiffs,
insisted that the notice was effectual; that the pauper’s marriage de facto was sufficient to give her the name of La Barron, and it was enough for the plaintiffs to call her by her reputed name; that Labem is sounded so nearly like La Barron, as not to amount to a misnomer ; Bac. Abr. Misnomer, A, B; Jac. Law Dict. Misnomer; 3 Caines’s R. 219 ; 5 Johns. R. 84 :
13 Johns. R. 486 ; 2 Caines’s R. 362; 14 Johns. R. 89; and if so, that the general answer of the defendants denying the settlement of Patty Labern, after they knew that Patty Baxter was the person so named, cured the defect in the notice Shelburne v. Rochester, 1 Pick. 470, [2d edit. 474, n. 1 ;] Shutesbury v. Oxford, 16 Mass. R. 102; Embden v. Augusta, 12 Mass. R. 307 ; Paris v. Hiram, ibid. 267.
C. A. Dewey, contra,
said that there was no ambiguity on
the face of this notice, as in some of the cases cited, and so the defendants had not, by their answer, waived any right; that they were obliged to answer in the manner they had done, for if they had been silent, the suit would have been for supporting Patty Labern, and they would have been concluded ; that the pauper should have been called by her legal name, or at least it should have been proved that Labern was her name of reputation in New Ashford ; that Labern and La Barron differ materially in spelling and pronunciation ; Commonwealth v. Hall, 3 Pick. 263, [2d edit. n. 1 ;] Commonwealth v. Perkins, 1 Pick. 388, [2d edit. n. 2 ;] and that the plaintiffs could not go out of the notice to show that the defendants knew to what person it related.

Opinion:
The cause was continued nisi, and at the next term held at Northampton the Court ordered that judgment be entered for the defendants.