Case Name: Mann v. The Commonwealth
Court: Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia
Jurisdiction: Virginia
Decision Date: 1819-12-10
Citations: 6 Munf. 452
Docket Number: 
Parties: Mann v. The Commonwealth.
Judges: 
Reporter: Virginia Reports
Volume: 20
Pages: 805–805

Head Matter:
Mann v. The Commonwealth.
Decided. Dec. 10th, 1819.
1. Bastardy Proceedings --Writ of Supersedeas — Jurisdiction to Cirant. The Superior Courts of law have •jurisdiction to grant Writs of Supersedeas to orders of the County or Corporation Courts, binding persons accused of being the fathers of bastard children to support such children; and the Court of Appeals in like manner, has jurisdiction to correct errors in the decisions of the Superior Courts of law on the same subj ect.
2. Same — Must Be in Writing. — Aperson accused of being the father of a bastard child, can not lawfully be bound to support such child, without a written charge before the magistrate by it’s mother; nor nnless it appear that the warrant was issued by the magistrate upon the application of the Overseers of the poor, or one of them, or that they, or one of them, were parties to the cause in the Court making the order against such person.
The County Court of Cumberland, in October 1816, ordered William Mann jr., who appeared before them on a charge of begetting a bastard child on the body of Mary M. Hudgins, (the record not shewing by whom, or in what manner, the charge was exhibited,) to enter into a recognizance to the Governor, himself in the sum of $500, and his securities in the sum of $250 each, fifty dollars to be paid annually until the expiration of ten years; to be levied &c. ; conditioned that he should indemnify the parish from all charges that might accrue from the maintainance of the said child.
The defendant, “on the trial of the cause, after the Court had ordered him to be bound in a recognizance, moved the Court to make the order so, that, if the bastard child should be bound out to a discreet person by any future Court, the recognizance should then cease to have any effect;” — and this the Court refusbd to do; to which opinion the defendant excepted.
To this'order, a Writ of Supersedeas was granted by the Superior Court, but after-wards dismissed, as having been improvidently awarded; that Court, in it’s opinion, having no jurisdiction of the case; whereupon the plaintiff in error obtained, from a Judge of this Court, a Supersedeas to the said order of dismission.
Bastardy Proceedings. — See monographic note on ‘"Parent and Child” appended to Armstrong y. Stone, 9 Gratt. 102.
Same — Appellate Jurisdiction. — The principal case is cited in Washington v. Com., 2 Va. Cas, 260.
Same— Charge Must Be in Writing, —When a charge is made before a magistrate by the mother of a bastard child, the charge ought to be taken down in writing, under the act oi the assembly. Howard v. Overseers of the Poor, 1 Rand. 464, 465, citing principal case as authority.

Opinion:
®'The case being submitted without argument,
JUDGE BROOKE
pronounced the Court's opinion, as follows.
The Court is of opinion, on the authority of the case of Eall v. the Overseers of the poor, in this Court, that the Superior Court erred in deciding that the Super-sedeas was improvidently awarded; and it not appearing, by the proceedings in the County Court, that the charge before the magistrate by the mother of the Bastard child was in writing, nor that the warrant-issued by the magistrate was so issued upon the application of the overseers of the poor, or any one of them, according to the 23d section of the Act, entitled, 'an Act providing for the poor, and declaring who shall be deemed vagrants," or that the overseers or any of them, were parties in the County Court; the Court is further of opinion that that judgment is also erroneous. Both judgments are therefore reversed ; the whole proceedings quashed; and judgment is to be entered for the plaintiff in error.
8 Munf. 495.
Edit, of 1794, 1803 & 1814, c. 102.