38 Vt. 60 | Vt. | 1865
The opinion of the court was delivered by
It was said by the court in Aldrich v. Londonderry, 5 Vt. 441, that there is no implied contract on the part of a town to pay for services, or relief afforded to a pauper, which was not afforded at their special request. In Castleton v. Miner et al., 8 Vt. 209, the court said, speaking of the obligation of towns to support their paupers, “ The obligation is altogether a matter of positive law, and the right of any one to compel towns to pay for the support of their poor is one stricti juris, and cannot be enforced except
But the defendant claims that he not only made no promise to pay the plaintiff for keeping his sister, the pauper, hut that he never requested him to keep her. If what was done was not equivalent to a request by the defendant, he would not be liable. The plaintiff had kept her for two years by contract with the defendant, — the first year for one dollar a week, and the second for one dollar and twenty-five cents a week. At the expiration of the second year the defendant sent word to the plaintiff that if he could not keep his sister the pauper another year for one dollar per week, he would come and take her away. The plaintiff returned word to the defendant that he could not keep her for a dollar a week, and to come and take her away. The defendant never went and took her away, but allowed her to remain during the whole year. The defendant clearly acknowledged his liability to pay for the support of the pauper, and his duty to go and take her away from the plaintiff, unless he could make a contract with him to keep her. After this interchange of communications between the parties, the plaintiff was well warranted in understanding it as a request by the defendant to keep her till he came to take her away, and the defendant had no reason to suppose the plaintiff was doing, or could do, otherwise than to keep her at his expense so long as he allowed her to remain. Substantially the same thing took place between the parties at the beginning of the next year. . The plaintiff told the defendant he would keep her another year for one dollar and twenty-five cents a week, which the defendant refused to pay, but said he would pay one dollar. This the
In that case the pauper had been supported by the plaintiff, and at the expiration of the time the overseer of Londonderry went to see the plaintiff to make a new contract for another year. The plaintiff offered to keep the pauper for seventy-five cents per week. The overseer offered him twenty-two dollars for the year, which was the price of the previous year, and told the plaintiff he could not make any contract to give more than that sum, as he was lim'ted to that by instructions from the town. The plaintiff declined to accept, hnd the overseer said he would take her away. The court decided that no contract could be implied from this against the town, and placed the decision mainly on the ground that they could not imply a contract as made by an agent, which the agent had no authority from the principal to make, and which want of authority was known to the plaintiff. This makes that case, and the ground on which it was decided, wholly untenable for the defendant to stand upon.
No question has been made as to the amount of the damages. They may well stand upon the presumed assent of the defendant to what the plaintiff offered, and what he had been keeping her for.
The county court, from what appeared on the trial, might properly have allowed that sum as a just and reasonable price.
Judgment affirmed.