Bradford v. City of Worcester

• Decision Date: 07 January 1904
• Citation: 184 Mass. 557,69 N.E. 310
• Parties: BRADFORD v. CITY OF WORCESTER.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

184 Mass. 557

69 N.E. 310

BRADFORD v. CITY OF WORCESTER.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

January 7, 1904

COUNSEL

Arthur P. Rugg, City Sol., for appellant.

Arthur Lord, for appellee.

OPINION

BRALEY J.

If Mary A. Williams, the mother of Charles Williams, acquired a settlement in Worcester, he gained a derivative settlement through her in the defendant city, which would become liable for his support as a pauper, and this presents the question to be determined in this case. At the time of her marriage in 1871 to Henry A. Williams, the father of Charles Williams she was a widow, and her last legal settlement, derived from a former husband, was in the town of Shutesbury.

The first contention of the defendant is that she does not fall within the description of a married woman 'who has not a settlement derived by marriage,' under Pub. St. 1882, c 83, § 1, cls. 1, 6, 7, because her former settlement in Shutesbury is to be deemed a 'settlement derived by marriage' within the meaning of the first clause, which is a re-enactment of Gen. St. 1860, c. 69, § 1, cl. 1, and in force at the time of her second marriage. But these clauses are to be construed together, and what is now clause 6, at the time of tis original enactment in St. 1874, p. 188, c. 274, § 2, was held to apply only to unmarried women. Somerville v. Boston, 120 Mass. 574. And it is said in the reasons given that 'the rule that the settlement of a married woman follows that of her husband has long been the statute rule of this commonwealth. St. 1789, p. 408, c. 14; St. 1793, p. 440, c. 34, § 2. It rests upon the principle of the common law. * * * It * * * concerns the unity of the marriage relation * * * because the law will not permit the separation of husband and wife.' Subsequently to this decision, St. 1879, p. 570, c. 242,§ 2, was passed, and now forms clause 7, the object of which was to change the law so far as it affected married women, and give them the same rights in the acquisition of a settlement as unmarried women. Marden v. Boston, 155 Mass. 359, 361, 29 N.E. 588.

It appears from the agreed facts that Henry A. Williams never at any time had a settlement within the commonwealth, and there was no 'settlement of her husband' which she could follows as her domicile for the purpose of relief as a pauper, and that would defeat a settlement derived from her first husband.

The purpose of the first clause was to recognize the merger of the wife by the marriage relation, and the right of the husband to fix their domicile; and if he failed to maintain it for a sufficient time to acquire a settlement, which by force of law should also be that of his wife, then she should not lose her own by reason of her marriage.

The words of the seventh clause, 'derived by marriage,' are to be read with the words 'at the time or marriage,' found in the first clause, nd to which they refer, and are to be taken in their plain sense and meaning. They relate to and mean a marriage then existing, and not a former marriage which has been dissolved by the death of the husband, and no longer legally exists, and by which the status of the wife is changed from that of a married woman to that of a widow, for whom as such provision is specially made; or, in other words, a present marital relation is the foundation on which the right rests, and, when that relation ceases, the protection of the statute is extended to her as a widow. The language used in the seventh clause, 'married women who have not a settlement derived by marriage,' in order to give her any right to relief as a pauper, must therefore be held to mean a settlement derived from a living husband, whose settlement, if he had any, either at the time of marriage or subsequently acquired during coverture, becomes by statute that of his wife.

Their marriage took place in 1871, and in August, 1875, the husband and father abandoned his wife and children, and since that time he has done nothing for her or for their support. He has wandered from state to state outside the commonwealth, being sometimes in one and sometimes in another, and in all his wanderings, covering a period of 12 years up to 1887, he is not shown to have become a citizen or made a home in any one place, and since that time 'his whereabouts have been unknown.' His wife continued in the home where he left her, apparently supporting her children so far as she was able, and never received any relief as a pauper except once, in November, 1886. And it is admitted that Mary A. Williams has resided in Worcester for at least five consecutive years since the passage of St. 1879, p. 570, c. 242, during which time she has not received relief as a pauper, and nothing is disclosed to take the case out of the general rule that ordinarily residence is to be considered the same as domicile. Phillips v. Boston, 183 Mass. 314, 67 N.E. 250.

Under these conditions the defendant finally relies on the fiction of the common law that husband and wife are legally one person, and, wherever he may be at any time, as a matter of domiciliary law his wife is there also; and though during all this period he was physically absent from the city of Worcester, his wife, even if bodily therein, must as a matter of law be held to have been with him, and, as he did not live there 'for five years together,' she...