Goodrich v. City of Waterville
| Decision Date | 21 May 1895 |
| Citation | 33 A. 659,88 Me. 39 |
| Parties | GOODRICH et al. v. CITY OF WATERVILLE. |
| Court | Maine Supreme Court |
(Official.)
Agreed case from supreme judicial court, Kennebec county.
This was an action wherein the plaintiffs, M. S. Goodrich and Fred E. Withee, copartners in the business of physicians and surgeons in Waterville, seek to recover for professional services and medicine an amount of $41.50, the same having been furnished to a woman pauper of said Waterville. The principal part of the services and medicine were furnished to the pauper by Dr. Withee, he having been first employed to attend the pauper while Dr. Goodrich was away out of the city; but during their employment Dr. Goodrich called upon her once or twice, and knew that he and Dr. Withee were rendering her medical attendance on account of the city, at the request of the overseers.
It is admitted that the services were rendered at the request of the overseers of the poor. It is also admitted that at the same time the city had a city physician who might have been called to treat the patient, but that for some reason the overseers called the plaintiffs, and he was not called, as he might have been if the overseers had seen fit to call him.
It is also admitted that Dr. Goodrich was at the time a member of the common council of the city of Waterville.
It was agreed that the plaintiffs were to recover the full amount of the bill, unless the fact that Dr. Goodrich was a member of the city government at the time these services were rendered bars the recovery under the statute, or unless the overseers of the poor exceeded their authority in employing the plaintiffs when the city had a regularly elected city physician. Plaintiffs nonsuit.
W. T. Haines, for plaintiffs.
F. W. Clair, for defendant.
This is an action to recover for medical attendance upon a pauper. Payment is resisted upon the ground that the plaintiffs were not legally employed.
It appears that at the time when the services sued for were rendered the city had a regularly and legally elected city physician, who was being paid a salary for medical attendance upon all its paupers, and who might have been called to treat the pauper; but that, for some unexplained reason, the overseers of the poor did not see fit to call him, and employed the plaintiffs. It also appears that at the time of the employment of the plaintiffs one of them was a member of the city council. And it is claimed that under these circumstances...
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