Attorney General v. Board of Public Welfare of Wilmington
| Decision Date | 04 March 1952 |
| Citation | 328 Mass. 468,104 N.E.2d 496 |
| Parties | ATTORNEY GENERAL v. BOARD OF PUBLIC WELFARE OF WILMINGTON. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
H. P. Fielding, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the petitioner.
P. B. Buzzell, Boston, G. H. Kidder, Boston, for the respondents.
Before QUA, C. J., and LUMMUS, RONAN, SPALDING and COUNIHAN, JJ.
This is an appeal from a judgment entered upon a petition for a writ of mandamus ordering the respondents as the board of public welfare of the town of Wilmington to render aid to the dependent children of a certain resident of that town and to make payments to her in designated amounts in accordance with the decision of the department of public welfare.
Upon the failure of the respondents to grant her relief upon her application filed with them on April 7, 1950, she appealed to the department of public welfare under G.L. (Ter.Ed.) c. 118, § 8, as appearing in St.1939, c. 248. Section 8, so far as material, provides that a person appealing shall be given a fair hearing which
The respondents, notwithstanding the plain terms of the statute making the decision of the department of public welfare final and binding upon them and requiring compliance by them, were permitted without any objection to contend and to introduce evidence 1 tending to show that the report approved by the commissioner of public welfare was not the report of the referee who heard the appeal but that of her supervisor. There was evidence that in the first report she submitted she denied the appeal and recommended reapplication after about three months, and that the acting supervisor of appeals, who was responsible for screening the decisions of the referees, studying the evidence that was given at the hearings, comparing the decisions with the evidence, and forwarding them for the commissioner's signature, read the first report of the referee and sent her a memorandum directing attention to certain matters and stating that in the circumstances 'it would seem that she [the applicant] should be given a trial' of aid to dependent children. The referee testified that as a result of this memorandum she changed her report and recommended the granting of aid to the applicant. She also testified that, after the receipt of the memorandum, she realized that the decision to be made by her was very much a matter of opinion and there was no reason why her opinion should be the only right one; that she studied the transcript first and then the memorandum to understand the points made in it and thought the points had some weight; and that the second report reflected her honest judgment. If upon further study and consideration she was satisfied in her own mind that she should change her report and submit a second report, she had a right to do so. This would be true even if the memorandum from the acting supervisor was the reason for reopening the matter, provided it was her own free, untrammeled judgment. There was no error in the judge's finding that the decision was her decision. Waucantuck Mills v. Magee Carpet Co., 225 Mass. 31, 33, 113 N.E. 573; Spiegel v. Beacon Participations, Inc., 297 Mass. 398, 409-410, 8 N.E.2d 895; Fine v. Commonwealth, 312 Mass. 252, 257, 44 N.E.2d 659, 145 A.L.R. 392; DeLuca v. Boston Elevated Railway Co., 312 Mass. 465, 496, 45 N.E.2d 463.
The respondents next contend that the judge was in error in excluding evidence tending to show that a previous application by the same applicant was withdrawn by her on April 7, 1949, because of fraud in reference to her application, that she was barred by the statute from filing another application within a year, and that the department had no power to entertain the application which was filed on April 7, 1950, and which resulted in the order now sought to be enforced. The statute, G.L. (Ter.Ed.) c. 118, § 10, as appearing in St.1936, c. 413, § 1, so far as...
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