Case Name: Westley Stewart v. Duffey
Court: United States District Court for the District of Columbia
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1809-07
Citations: 1 Cranch 551
Docket Number: 
Parties: Westley Stewart v. Duffey.
Judges: 
Reporter: Reports of cases argued and determined in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia (District of Columbia - reported by Mackey)
Volume: 1
Pages: 551–551

Head Matter:
Westley Stewart v. Duffey.
The order of the Orphans’ Court, to hind out an apprentice, is not a binding so as to constitute the relation of master and apprentice.
This was a petition of an apprentice against his master (a comb-maker,) praying to be discharged. There was an order of the Orphans’ Court to bind him as orphan, but no indentures were ever executed.
Mr. Jones, for the petitioner,
cited the Maryland law of 1793, e. 45, *§> 2. The books of the Orphans’ Court are not a record. The entry is a mere memorandum of a verbal contract; it is not obligatory upon the master. It is not a binding out. The power of the Orphans’ Court is*a mere substitute for the power of the overseers of the poor, or of the parent or guardian.
Mr. Swann, on the same side.
In the ease of Wilbar v. Man-deville, the Court decided that such an order does not bind ; and Wilbar’s daughter was discharged from Mandeville.
Mr. C. Simms. The boy is an orphan, and the order may be complied with by executing the indenture. There was evidence of a verbal discharge by the master who sold out his shop, gave up his house, and went to Philadelphia.

Opinion:
The Court
discharged the boy on both grounds, viz. that there was no contract, and if there was, there was also a discharge.