213 Mass. 350 | Mass. | 1913
When this case came on for trial the plaintiff and the defendant rested on the auditor’s report. The presiding judge
The facts, found by the auditor, on which the case was submitted were in substance as follows: The action was brought under R. L. c. 81, § 9, to recover from the defendant as a pauper expenses
In addition to the defendant’s share of these supplies the plaintiff sought to recover one fourth of the two following sums: (1) $10 furnished the defendant to pay the interest on her mortgage in the year 1905; (2) $59.33, which without solicitation on her part the overseers of the poor expended in paying the taxes on the
The auditor found that the taxes were paid by the overseers without the defendant’s knowledge, and were paid by them “because in their opinion it was cheaper for the board to pay the taxes assessed on the defendant’s real estate than to have the estate sold, and the overseers of the poor then be obliged to procure board for the defendant and the rest of the household elsewhere.” Similar findings were made as to their payment of mortgage interest and of the insurance premium.
The defendant’s husband died in August, 1910, and within a reasonable time thereafter the defendant paid the grocer for supplies which she bought after that date, and notified the town that she did not wish to receive any further supplies from it. The auditor found that during the period covered by this action the defendant was a pauper, but that since her husband’s death she has not been and is not now a pauper.
R. L. c. 81, § 9, under which this action is brought, is a reenactment of St. 1882, c. 113. A similar (although not identical) statute enacted in 1817 (St. 1817, c. 186, § 5) was repealed by the Revised Statutes in 1836. See Groveland v. Medford, 1 Allen, 23, 24, 25. As was said by Chief Justice Chipman in Selectmen of Bennington v. M’Genness, N. Chip. 45, reprinted in D. Chip. 44, and quoted by Metcalf, J., in Stow v. Sawyer, 3 Allen, 515, 517: “The provision made by law for the relief of the poor is a charitable provision. To consider it in any other light detracts much from the benevolence of the law.” This of course was quoted by Metcalf, J., after St. 1817, c. 186, § 5, had been repealed and. before St. 1882, c. 113 was passed. The law is now otherwise. But the present act has been construed in a liberal spirit by this court. In Taunton v. Talbot, 186 Mass. 341, it was held, in an action under R. L. c. 81, § 9, to recover from a pauper the cost of supporting him in the plaintiff town’s almshouse, that the pauper could show that the services rendered by him while an inmate were worth the amount of that cost; and if they were he was not liable.
The action of the plaintiff town in the case at bar is narrow, if not harsh. The auditor has found that the defendant was a
If the defendant were to be charged for one fourth of the supplies furnished the Frink family, because she is supposed to have used one fourth, of them, the question immediately arises what was the value (1) of the shelter she gave to her husband, who was found by the auditor to be a pauper, and to her son and grandson, who on the report may have been paupers; and (2) perhaps what was the value of the services which she rendered in doing the household work for the pauper husband at any rate, and possibly for the son and grandson. Under the decision in Taunton v. Talbot, ubi supra, so far as the defendant and perhaps her husband (who were found to be paupers) were concerned she was entitled to set up the value of her services in recoupment.
The overseers of the poor have taken a broader view of the situation than that taken by the plaintiff town. They considered that these supplies were furnished not to the defendant but to her husband, and they may well have taken this view on the ground that (as in Taunton v. Talbot) the shelter and services contributed by the defendant were equal to her share of the supplies. They determined to and did furnish the supplies to the defendant’s husband and not to her. Under the circumstances this must be taken to be final.
The entry must be
Judgment on the verdict.
The case was submitted on briefs.
Stevens, J. The auditor was Arthur P. Hardy, Esquire.