Davis v. Inhabitants of Milton Plantation

• Decision Date: 29 July 1897
• Citation: 38 A. 539,90 Me. 512
• Parties: DAVIS v. INHABITANTS OF MILTON PLANTATION.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

38 A. 539

90 Me. 512

DAVIS

v. INHABITANTS OF MILTON PLANTATION.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

July 29, 1897.

(Official.)

Exceptions from supreme judicial court, Oxford county.

This was an action by Henry Davis against the inhabitants of Milton plantation to recover for the burial expenses of a state pauper who died in Milton plantation, and of which plantation the plaintiff was a resident.

In the course of the trial the presiding justice made the following pro forma ruling: "If you find the issues of fact in favor of the plaintiff—if you find, in other words, that the plaintiff would be otherwise entitled to recover if the defendants had been an incorporated town,—he may also recover against these defendants, who are only an organized plantation, and not a town. It would be immaterial whether they were an organized plantation, merely, or an incorporated town. For the purposes of this trial, I give you that rule."

The defendant took an exception to this ruling, and also filed a general motion for a new trial, a verdict for the plaintiff having been returned by the jury. Exceptions and motion sustained.

J. S. Wright, for plaintiff.

J. P. Swasey, for defendants.

FOSTER, J. The plaintiff, a resident of the defendant plantation, sues to recover for the burial expenses of a state pauper who died in said plantation.

Exception is taken to the ruling of the presiding justice that, if the plaintiff would be otherwise entitled to recover if the defendants had been an incorporated town, he might also recover against these defendants, who are only an organized plantation, and not a town.

We think this ruling cannot be sustained.

The obligations of towns and plantations in reference to the support of paupers result from provisions of positive law. Whatever there is originates solely from statutory enactment, and it has none of the elements of a contract, express or implied. There are no equitable considerations out of which presumptions will arise in favor of either party. "The statutes upon the subject are in no sense remedial, and are not to be modified or enlarged by construction, or by any apparent equities, and nothing is to be deemed to be within the spirit and meaning of the statutes which is not clearly expressed in words." Plymouth v. Wareham, 126 Mass. 475, 477.

Therefore, unless the plaintiff can bring his case within the express provision of some statute, he must fail, for there is no moral obligation resting upon the defendant plantation to support its paupers. Newry v. Gilead, 60 Me. 154, 156.

It is admitted that the person for whose burial expenses this suit is brought was a state pauper.

Rev. St. c. 24, § 33, imposes upon certain plantations certain obligations with reference to "persons found" within their limits, and needing relief. It is as follows: "Persons found in plantations having a population of more than two hundred, to be determined by the returns of the county commissioners, as provided by section seventy of chapter three, and a state valuation of forty thousand dollars, and needing relief, are under the care of the assessors of such plantations; and the duties and powers...