Case Name: VANDEVENTER against VANCOURT
Court: New Jersey Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: New Jersey
Decision Date: 1807-02
Citations: 2 N.J.L. 169
Docket Number: 
Parties: VANDEVENTER against VANCOURT. [123]
Judges: 
Reporter: New Jersey Law Reports
Volume: 2
Pages: 155–156

Head Matter:
VANDEVENTER against VANCOURT. [123]
ON CERTIORARI
In qui tam actions, the demand must show who are entitled to the penalty.
This was an action brought by the defendant in this court, ■against the plaintiff, to recover a penalty of forty dollars for beating or driving on South river, in the county of Middle-sex, in order to molest or disturb [*] the natural run of shad or fish in said river, under the act of Assembly of the 22d February, 1804, entitled “An act to regulate the shad fishery in South river, in the county of Middlesex.”
The reason assigned for the reversal of the judgment of the justice, was, that the action was brought and prosecuted in the name of the plaintiff only, whereas it ought to have been a qui tam action, as well for the informer as for the overseer of the poor of the township where the offense was committed, to whom, half the penalty was given for the use of the poor. It was contended on the part of the defendant in error, that as the act authorized the penalty to be sued for and recovered in the name of any person that should make complaint thereof, the qui tarn part was unnecessary; at least that the omission of it was not a fatal error, aiid that the judgment ought to be affirmed.
Vide post, 714, Moffet v. Bolmer. — Ed.

Opinion:
By the Court.
— Although a common informer may bring an action generally in his own name, yet when the penalty is either given to the State, the poor of the township where the offense is committed, or others, he must declare specially qui tarn, in order that the interest of those who have right, may appear of record, and be asserted. Judgment, must, therefore, for this cause be reversed.