City of Boston v. Inhabitants of Mt. Washington

• Decision Date: 27 February 1885
• Citation: City of Boston v. Inhabitants of Mt. Washington, 139 Mass. 15, 29 N.E. 60 (Mass. 1885)
• Parties: CITY OF BOSTON v. INHABITANTS OF MT. WASHINGTON.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

139 Mass. 15

29 N.E. 60

CITY OF BOSTON

v.INHABITANTS OF MT. WASHINGTON.¹

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

Feb. 27, 1885.

Appeal from superior court, Suffolk county.Affirmed.

Action by the city of Boston against the inhabitants of Mt. Washington for the support of a pauper.Judgment for plaintiff.Defendant appeals.

One Maurice Roach, a pauper, entered the naval service of the United States on April 9, 1861, at Boston, and was mustered in for three years as a coal-heaver on board the Minnesota; and in May, 1864, he was honorably discharged.The secretary of war had appointed commissioners to ascertain what credits Massachusetts and its subdivisions were entitled to under St.U.S. July 4, 1864, § 8, which provides “that all persons in the naval service of the United States, who have entered said service during the present Rebellion, who have not been credited to the quota of any town *** by reason of their being in said service and not enrolled prior to February 24, 1864, shall be enrolled and credited to the quotas of the town *** in which they respectively reside.”They instructed their clerks in making assignments to copy the rolls of the receiving ship, and credit only those who had joined the service after April 13, 1861, or the beginning of the war.The commissioners assigned to the different subdivisions of the state the men resident therein, and then the men to whom none of the subdivisions had proved a right, but who were entitled to be credited to the state at large.The pauper Roach was assigned to the defendant town, but it appeared that defendant acquired no knowledge of the assignment until 1878.

G. Wigglesworth, for appellant.

A.J. Bailey and R.W. Nason, for appellee.

HOLMES, J.

Maurice Roach was assigned as part of the quota of the defendant town under the United States statute of July 4, 1864, (section 8;) but it is admitted, if competent, that he had been enlisted and mustered into the service of the United States about five days before the beginning of the Rebellion.The defendant argues that Roach was not properly credited to it under the above statute, and that, therefore, he was not “duly assigned as a part of the quota thereof,” under the settlement law of this state.St.1878, c. 190, § 1, cl. 10;Pub.St. c. 83, § 1, cl. 11.²But we do not so understand the Massachusetts act.It was retroactive legislation, passed long after the war, when the towns had had the benefit of the assignments as actually made, getting the same benefit, it will be observed, whether the credit was right or wrong.The legislature was under no obligation to provide for a hearing before thus distributing the burden; but it may have known that, at the time when the assignments were...