138 Mass. 99 | Mass. | 1884
It is provided by the Pub. Sts. c. 157, § 104, that, in the order for a dividend on an insolvent estate, “ the following claims shall be entitled to priority, and to be first paid in full in their order: First, All debts due to the United States, and all debts due to and taxes assessed by this State, or any county,
The provisions of the Public Statutes were certainly intended as a reenactment, without change in the law as it previously existed. Drew v. Streeter, 137 Mass. 460. It was the intention of the commissioners, as stated by them, to express in the text of the revision the existing laws according to their understanding of them, in such a manner that no existing rights should be changed. ¡Report of Commissioners, 3. When there is substantial doubt as to the meaning of the language used in the Public Statutes, the statutes as they previously existed afford, therefore, a most valuable guide in their construction. But when language is clear, we cannot look to the earlier statutes to see if an error has been made by the Legislature in its understanding of them, as there is then no room for the office of construction. Baker v. Atlas Bank, 9 Met. 182, 197. Holbrook v. Bliss, 9 Allen, 69, 76. Lewis v. United States, 92 U. S. 618, 621. Even if the meaning it has affixed to the earlier statutes is different from that we should attribute to them, that which it has adopted, if clearly expressed by the Public Statutes, is controlling. If the language of the statute, as it now exists, were susceptible of two constructions, an argument drawn from the statute as it was
In this view, we do not deem it necessary to consider what is the proper construction of the statutes as they existed before the enactment of the Public Statutes. Bill dismissed.