City of Portland v. City of Bangor

• Citation: 65 Me. 120
• Parties: CITY OF PORTLAND v. CITY OF BANGOR.
• Decision Date: 03 May 1876
• Court: Supreme Judicial Court of Maine (US)

65 Me. 120

CITY OF PORTLAND v. CITY OF BANGOR.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

May 3, 1876

1874.

ON MOTION.

ASSUMPSIT for alleged pauper supplies.

Harriet S. Ray, the alleged pauper, was committed to the Portland workhouse in 1871, under a warrant signed by two overseers of the poor, on an ex parte hearing, on the ground that she was an able bodied, dissolute vagrant, exercising no lawful business and liable to become chargeable to the city. This action was brought for her board while in the workhouse for two months ending September 17, 1871, at $2.50 per week. The verdict was for the plaintiffs for $24.49; the defendants filed a motion to have it set aside, as against law and evidence.

A G. Wakefield, city solicitor, for the defendants.

T B. Reed, city solicitor, for the plaintiffs, relied upon Angeline G. Nott's case, 11 Me. 208, and Portland v Bangor, 42 Me. 403.

WALTON J.

It was decided in Angeline G. Nott's case, 11 Me. 208, that the statute of this state which declares that two or more overseers of the poor of any town or city, may, by a writing under their hands, commit to the work house, " all persons able of body to work, and not having estate or means otherwise to maintain themselves, who refuse or neglect so to do, and all such as live a dissolute, vagrant life, and exercise no ordinary calling or lawful business, sufficient to gain an honest livelihood; and all such as spend their time and property in public houses to the neglect of their proper business," violates no provision of our state constitution; and, in Portland v. Bangor, 42 Me. 403, that the expenses thus incurred for the support of either of these classes of persons while thus confined in the workhouse, are in contemplation of law, pauper supplies, and may be sued for and recovered as such of the town or city where such persons have their settlements.

If such an arbitrary exercise of power violates no provision of our state constitution, it very clearly violates the fourteenth amendment of the federal constitution. That article declares that no state shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; and while it may not be easy to determine in advance what will in every case constitute due process of law, it needs no argument to prove that an ex parte determination of two overseers of the poor is not such process. Dunn v. Burleigh, 62 Me. 24.

If white men and women may be...