Case Name: Commonwealth versus Ezra Kellogg
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Jurisdiction: Massachusetts
Decision Date: 1830-09
Citations: 9 Pick. 557
Docket Number: 
Parties: Commonwealth versus Ezra Kellogg.
Judges: 
Reporter: Massachusetts Reports
Volume: 26
Pages: 567–567

Head Matter:
Commonwealth versus Ezra Kellogg.
The commanding officer of a militia company cannot delegate the power of appointing a person to warn his men to appear at a company parade.
On the petition of S. W. Halsey, a private in a company ol militia, a writ of certiorari was issued to a justice of the peace, by whom Halsey had been fined for neglecting to meet with the company on the first Tuesday of May 1829. The judgment of the magistrate was alleged to be erroneous, because the order from the commanding officer to warn the company, was not directed to the person who warned them, but to the clerk of the company, authorizing him to issue his warrant to some suitable person in each school district to notify and warn, &c.
Bishop, for the Commonwealth,
referred to St. 1809, c. 108, § 18, which provides that the commanding officer of a company “ shall issue his orders to some one or more of the non-commissioned officers or privates of his company, requiring him or them to notify the men belonging to his company to appear,” &c.
Whiting, contra,
cited Commonwealth v. Cutter, 8 Mass. R. 279 ; Commonwealth v. Derby, 13 Mass. R. 433.

Opinion:
The Court
held, that the commanding officer of the company had no right to delegate the power of appointing a person to warn the company, and the proceedings were therelore quashed
See Revised Stat. e. 12, § 88.