15 Vt. 385 | Vt. | 1843
The opinion of the court was delivered by
The marriage of Israel Sheldon with Charlotte Perry, he then having a wife living, was void, and the issue illegitimate. By the principles of the common law, it is well settled, that the place where born is the place of the settlement of a bastard child, in cases free from fraud. It seems Charlotte Perry had, at the time of the pretended marriage with Israel Sheldon, in 1807, a derivative settle
It is urged, in argument, that this child, afterwards, gained a derivative settlement from his mother in Manchester, and if not so, that he must have gained a settlement there in his own right. The act of 1797 expressly provided that the settlement of a bastard child should follow that of the mother. By the act of 1801, there is no provision as to the place of settlement of bastards ; but they are left as at common law. In 1817, the subject of settlements again engaged the attention of the legislature, and in the act of that year it was again provided that the settlement of a bastard shall follow that of the mother. The question in this case is to be settled under the act of 1801. There seems no good reason to prevent Charlotte Perry from having gained a settlement in Manchester, in her own right. She was not the wife of Israel Sheldon, and she lived there more than the requisite time. Third persons in interest may well impeach, collaterally, the validity of a marriage. Middleborough v. Rochester, 12 Mass. R. 363; Mountholly v. Andover, 11 Vt. R. 226. The warning out of Israel Sheldon and his family can have no effect. In no proper sense was she a part of his family ; which includes those and those only whom, by law, he was bound to support. 2 Vt. R. 158.
The question, then, returns — did Charlotte Perry communicate a derivative settlement to her illegitimate child, John Sheldon ? By the last clause of the first section of the act of 1797, it is provided, “ that every bastard child shall be
As, with us, the law relative to derivative settlements of illegitimate children, from 1801 up to 1817, depended upon the principles of the common law, the decisions which have been made in the common law courts in England, are authorities for us, and alike binding as on other questions arising upon the common law. Besides, when the provisions of the act of 1797 were repealed by that of 1801, and, in 1817, the law was again restored, altering the rule of the common law, it is a fair inference, that the legislature contemplated the legal result, in the meantime, to have followed, (that is, a restoration of the common law rule) and that it had followed. We think it safest that we should adhere to the common law rule; and be satisfied with administering the law as we find it. It is always of dangerous tendency for a court to intro-' duce, in their discretion, a new rule to govern the rights of parties, unknown at common lark.
The result, then, to which we arrive is, that John Sheldon had not a settlement in Manchester, at the time of his death, in 1842, but still retained, up to his death, his settlement in
The judgment of the county court is affirmoc}.
V.