Case Name: Ralph Sanger versus The Inhabitants of the Third Parish in Roxbury
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Jurisdiction: Massachusetts
Decision Date: 1811-10
Citations: 7 Tyng 265
Docket Number: 
Parties: * Ralph Sanger versus The Inhabitants of the Third Parish in Roxbury.
Judges: 
Reporter: Massachusetts Reports
Volume: 8
Pages: 223–224

Head Matter:
* Ralph Sanger versus The Inhabitants of the Third Parish in Roxbury.
A person officiating as a reader in an Episcopal church, without ordination, is a public teacher within the constitution. Nor is it any objection to his recov ering taxes paid by his hearers to another teacher, that he was engaged by contract for part of a year only, provided such contract was renewed and con tinned for a whole year.
This action, which was assumpsit for money had and received, was submitted to the decision of the Court on an agreed statement of facts, from which it appeared that the plaintiff was engaged in October, 1809, as reader to the incorporated Episcopal society in Cambridge, for the term of six months, and from that time to the date of his writ had been so engaged, but always by a contract of six months only, and had accordingly officiated in that character during the said term, never having been ordained or licensed to preach; — that John Winthrop, Esq., was an inhabitant of the said third parish in Roxbury, and was taxed in certain sums during the years 1808 and 1809, for the support of the Congregational minister of that parish ; — that the said Winthrop was, during the years aforesaid, a member of the said Episcopal society, and having paid the taxes aforesaid, ordered them to be paid to the plaintiff as his public teacher, who afterwards regularly demanded the same.
I). W. Lincoln for the plaintiff.
L. Richardson, for the defendants,
objected to the plaintiff’s recovery, because he did not officiate as reader to the Episcopal society at all during the year 1808, and only three months of the year 1809. Having never been ordained, it might admit of a question whether he could recover in character of a public teacher within the' constitution, although he had officiated the whole time for which the taxes in the case were paid.

Opinion:
By the Court.
We have no doubt that a person regularly engaged and officiating as a reader in an Episcopal society, is a public teacher of piety, religion, and morality, within the meaning and intent of the third article of our declaration of rights. Neither is it any objection to the plaintiff's recovery in this case that his contract was semi-annual only, if, under such contracts, he had officiated for the whole of either of the years, for which the taxes claimed by him were paid. But as this was not the case, he cannot have judgment. Plaintiff nonsuit.