Case Name: Timothy Boutelle, qui tam, &c., versus David Nourse
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Jurisdiction: Massachusetts
Decision Date: 1808-05
Citations: 3 Tyng 431
Docket Number: 
Parties: * Timothy Boutelle, qui tam, &c., versus David Nourse.
Judges: 
Reporter: Massachusetts Reports
Volume: 4
Pages: 378–380

Head Matter:
* Timothy Boutelle, qui tam, &c., versus David Nourse.
Where a statute imposes a penalty for taking fish, and gives an action of debt qui tam for its recovery, if several join in taking the same fish, a recovery and satisfaction against one of the offenders is a good bar to an action brought against the others.
This was an action of debt upon the statute of 1797, c. 70, in which the plaintiff, one of the fish wardens of the town of Water-ville, who sues as well for the county of Kennebeck as for himself, alleges that the defendant, at Winslow, in said county, on the 31st day of May, 1807, the same being Sunday, took seven thousand and two hundred alewives in the River Sebasticook, running through the said town of Winslow, contrary to said statute, whereby he has forfeited twenty cents for each of said fish, amounting, in the whole, to the sum of eighteen hundred dollars. Yet though requested, &c.
The defendant pleads, in bar of the action, .that at the Court of Common Pleas in this county in December- last, the plaintiff impleaded one Jedidiah Morrill, in a plea of debt, &c., [the declaration being exactly similar to that in the present action,] and recovered judgment against the said Morrill for the sum of fifteen dollars and twenty-five cents debt and costs of suit, which judgment remains in full force and unreversed, and which the said Morrill has fully paid and satisfied; and then avers that the taking of the fish described and mentioned in the plaintiff’s declaration against the said Morrill, is the same taking of the fish described and mentioned in the plaintiff’s declaration in this action, and that the defendant was jointly concerned with the said Morrill in the said taking of the said fish, and not otherwise, and this he is ready to verify; wherefore he prays judgment, &c.
The plaintiff demurs generally, and the defendant joins in demurrer.
Todd, for the plaintiff,
read the fourth section of the act of 1797, c. 70, for the preservation of the fish in the counties of Cumberland and Lincoh, which provides “ that if any person or persons shall take or catch any salmon, shad, or alewives, in any of the waters within the said counties, between the 20th day of April and the 5th day of July annually ; at any other time than between sunrise on Monday and sunrise on Saturday in each week, he or they so offending shall forfeit and pay as a fine for each and every * salmon so taken,” &c. And he contended that by [*432] this section every offender was severally liable to the penalty inflicted, each person’s offence being distinct, and that a recovery against one is no bar to a like recovery against another.
Rice, for the defendant,
insisted that one satisfaction is all that the statute requires, and is a good bar to a recovery of a second for one joint offence, as he contended this to be; and he cited the case of Rex vs. Clark, where it was decided that when an offence created, or made penal by statute, is in its nature single, one single penalty only can be recovered, though several join in committing it; but if the offence is in its nature several, each offender is separately liable to the penalty. And the case put by Lord Mansfield under the statute for the preservation of the game, agrees precisely, in its principle, with the case at bar. The case of Rex vs. Bleasdale & Al. is to the same effect.
Comp. 610.
4 Term Rep. 809.

Opinion:
The opinion of the Court was afterwards delivered by
Parsons, C. J.
This action is debt qui tam on the fourth section of the statute of 1797, c. 70, against the defendant for taking, in Sebasticook River, 7200 alewives. The defendant pleads that he is not guilty, but with one Jedidiah Morrill; and that the plaintiff* had formerly impleaded the said Morrill for the same offence, had recovered judgment, and that judgment has been satisfied. To this bar there is a demurrer and joinder.
As the statute imposes a penalty for every alewive taken, to be paid by the offender, we are satisfied that but one penalty can be recovered for taking the same fish.
Although debt qui tam lies to recover the penalty, yet the debt arises from a trespass which in its nature is several, as well as joint. The action may therefore be sued against one or more of the joint offenders. But the plaintiff* can have but one satisfaction. It appears from the bar, which is confessed by the demurrer, that the plaintiff* has already received from Morrill a satisfaction for the penalty incurred by taking the same fish mentioned in his declaration. He cannot, therefore, recover a double satisfaction by maintaining the present action against Nourse.
* If several persons were fishing at the same time, each [ * 433 ] with his own net, and on his own separate account, they would be separately liable to the penalty, each one for the fish he caught, although they might afterwards agree to throw all the fish into one stock. But that is not the present case.
The plea in bar appears to us to be good, and the defendant must have judgment.