Directors of Westmoreland Co. v. Overseers of Conemaugh

• Decision Date: 01 January 1859
• Citation: 34 Pa. 231
• Parties: The Directors of the Poor of Westmoreland County versus The Overseers of Conemaugh Township.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Page 231

34 Pa. 231

The Directors of the Poor of Westmoreland County versus The Overseers of Conemaugh Township.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

CERTIORARI to the Quarter Sessions of Indiana county.

Turney, for the Directors of the Poor of Westmoreland county.

Banks, for the Overseers of Conemaugh township.

The opinion of the court was delivered by STRONG, J.

This certiorari brings up only the record of the proceedings in the court below of June Sessions 1858, in which the court confirmed an order of removal of Thomas Bell, a pauper made by two justices of the peace of Indiana county. It is now settled, that the writ does not remove the evidence received by the justices, or by the court below. That is no part of the record. We are, therefore, confined to a review of the regularity and legality of the proceedings: Overseers of South Huntingdon v. The Overseers of East Huntingdon, 7 Watts 529; Overseers of Derry v. Brown, 1 Harris 390; Mauch Chunk v. Nescopeck, 9 Harris 46. It was, doubtless, in forgetfulness of this established rule, that some of the alleged errors have been assigned. They relate not to the regularity or legality of the record returned in obedience to our writ, but to matters which are not upon the record, and mainly to an antecedent proceeding between the same parties, relative to the same pauper; a proceeding not now before us.

The principal question presented here, which we can consider, relates to the effect of a former order of removal granted by the same justices, also on the complaint of the Overseers of Conemaugh township. It appears, that on the 19th of August 1857, they made complaint to James R. Dougherty and David Henderson, esquires, two justices of the peace, for the removal of Thomas Bell, the pauper, to the poor-house of Westmoreland county, and on the 24th of August 1857, the order was granted. The pauper was taken to the poor-house, but he was not received. The Overseers of the Poor of Westmoreland county took no appeal from this order of removal to the next Court of Quarter Sessions, as they were authorized by law to do; but delayed attempting an appeal until December 7th 1857, when the "next term of the sessions had gone by." Then, they had no right to appeal. The Act of Assembly gave them none: and on the 22d of March 1858, their attempted appeal was dismissed. The Quarter Sessions could have done nothing else. They had no right to entertain an appeal taken after the court next succeeding the order of...