In re Brown

• Decision Date: 23 May 1899
• Citation: 173 Mass. 498,53 N.E. 998
• Parties: In re BROWN.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

173 Mass. 498

53 N.E. 998

In re BROWN.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

May 23, 1899.

Habeas corpus by James W. Brown against John B. O'Brien. Writ denied.

John P. Leahy, for petitioner.

F.S. Harlow and Chas. H. Stebbins, for respondent.

HOLMES, J.

This is a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. The petitioner is held by virtue of a mittimus issued under St.1898, c. 549, and the only question argued is whether that statute is constitutional. The statute provides that proceedings may be had in any police, district, or municipal court of the district in which a judgment debtor resides, by which, after notice, proof that the debt is for necessaries furnished to the debtor or his family, and an examination, a decree may be made fixing the time, place, and amount of payments to be made by the debtor, and that failure, without good cause, to comply with the decree, shall be treated as a contempt of court, to be proceeded against as courts of equity are accustomed to proceed.

The first objection taken to the act is that it is operative only in those portions of the commonwealth which are within the jurisdiction of some police, district, or municipal court, and that a number of towns are outside any such jurisdiction, having only trial justices. It is suggested that for this reason the statute creates special privileges, imposes special burdens, and denies the equal protection of the laws to all. But it is settled that municipal regulations of this sort, based simply on the practical necessities of administration in dealing with a population unequally distributed over the state, do not conflict with the fourteenth amendment of the constitution of the United States. Missouri v. Lewis, 101 U.S. 22;Kentucky Railroad Tax Cases, 115 U.S. 321, 338, 6 Sup.Ct. 57;Hayes v. Missouri, 120 U.S. 68, 7 Sup.Ct. 350. There is even less pretense for finding any inconsistency with the less specific expressions relied on from the state constitution. See Com. v. Worcester, 3 Pick. 462;Roberts v. City of Boston, 5 Cush. 198.

Next it is objected that the law creates a preferred class of creditors. Why not? Such preferences always have existed,-preferences of specialty creditors over creditors by simple contractin former days; preferences of certain classes of debts in the settlement of bankrupt or insolvent estates and in administration at the present time; special privileges in the way of liens given by statute to laborers and material men. We know of nothing to prevent the legislature making the purchase of the necessaries of life easier, by giving special remedies against those who willfully try to avoid paying for them.

Finally it is suggested that the statute is contrary to the twelfth article of the Massachusetts bill of rights, as depriving defendants of their liberty or estate otherwise than by the judgment of their peers or the law of the land. This seems to a majority of the court even less tenable than the previously mentioned objections. The statute applies only to judgment debtors. A valid judgment is assumed to have been obtained. One was obtained in this case. The petitioner might have had a jury, if he had wanted it, upon the merits of his case. But, after they had been tried, the application of this article of the bill of rights is at an end. It does not apply to the procedure of execution. The statute, if the legislature had seen fit, might have revived unconditional imprisonment in case of failure to pay the judgment; and we apprehend that it would make no difference whether the statute should treat...