Lesieur v. Inhabitants of Rumford

• Decision Date: 20 April 1915
• Parties: LESIEUR v. INHABITANTS OF RUMFORD.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

93 A. 838

113 Me. 317

LESIEUR

v. INHABITANTS OF RUMFORD.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

April 20, 1915.

Exceptions from Supreme Judicial Court, Oxford County, at Law.

Action by L. O. Lesieur against the Inhabitants of Rumford. There was a judgment of nonsuit, and plaintiff brings exceptions. Overruled.

Argued before SPEAR, CORNISH, KING, BIRD, and HANSON, JJ.

Albert Beliveau, of Rumford, for plaintiff. James B. Stevenson, of Rumford, for defendant.

KING, J. Action of assumpsit to recover for services performed in attending Wilfred Boussalari, who was infected with smallpox and placed in quarantine. The declaration contains three counts: (1) A count on an account annexed for 10 days' services at $10 per day; (2) a count declaring on an express contract alleged to have been made with the plaintiff by the board of health of Rumford, whereby he was to perform the particular service at the specified price of $10 per day, and alleging that he performed the service for the period of 10 days; (3) an omnibus count During the trial the plaintiff voluntarily struck out the omnibus count and stipulated that he would rely solely upon his alleged express contract. At the close of the evidence for the plaintiff a nonsuit was ordered, and the case is before this court on exceptions to that ruling.

We think the evidence would have justified the jury in finding that the express contract was made as alleged; and no question was raised as to the performance of the services sued for.

The defendant claimed that the plaintiff was not entitled to recover because it was his duty to perform the services sued for in his capacity as "town physician." But that claim is not sustainable under the evidence. The plaintiff's contract with the town as town physician was to take care "of the town paupers" so far as they required medical aid. There is no evidence that Boussalari was a pauper at the time he became infected with this contagious disease. And the statute expressly provides that persons who become needy and are assisted with necessary food, medicine, etc., while in quarantine on account of a contagious disease, shall not "be considered a pauper, or be subject to disfranchisement for that cause, unless such persons are already paupers as defined by the revised statutes." Pub. Laws 1909, c. 25, § 2; Eden v. Southwest Harbor, 108 Me. 489, 81 Atl. 1003.

But it appears that the plaintiff was one of the three members of the board of health of Rumford at the time the contract between him and the board was made and while the services thereunder were being performed, and for that reason the defendant contends that the contract was illegal and unenforceable. That is the vital question presented. Does such a contract so contravene public policy that it should not be enforced?

It has been said that no exact definition of public policy has ever been given. The courts, however, have frequently approved Lord Brougham's definition of public policy as the principle which declares that no one can lawfully do that which has a tendency to be injurious to the public welfare. Egerton v. Earl Brownlow, 4 H. L. Cas. 1, 235. This principle has been termed the policy of the law, or public policy in relation to the administration of the law. Precisely what public policy is in any given case may be a difficult question to answer with precision. It has been well said, however, that, whenever the courts are called upon to scrutinize a contract which is clearly repugnant to sound morality and civic honesty, they need not look long for a well-fitting definition of public policy, or hesitate in its practical application to the law of contracts. It may be said, as a general statement of some of the principles underlying the doctrine of public policy as applied to the law of contracts, that a contract is against public policy if it contravenes some public statute, or tends clearly to injure the public health, or the public morals, or to work injustice and oppression, and thereby injure the public welfare, or to impair the public confidence in the purity of the administration of the law, "or to undermine that sense of security for individual rights, whether of personal liberty or of private property, which any citizen ought to feel."

It may be assumed that the contract in question is not expressly prohibited by statute. Nor does it stipulate for the doing of anything repugnant to morality; on the contrary, the service contracted for was necessary and lawful to be done. Nevertheless, where the contract is not prohibited by statute and stipulates for nothing that is malum in se or malum prohibitum, if it clearly appears to be in violation of some well-established rule of law, or that its tendency will be harmful to the interests of society, it is against the policy of the law to uphold and enforce it.

It is well established as a general rule that one acting in a fiduciary relation to others is required to exercise perfect fidelity to his trust, and the law, to prevent the neglect of such fidelity, and to guard against any temptation to serve his own interests to the prejudice of his principal's, disables him from making any contract with himself binding on his principal. The invalidity of a contract entered into in violation of this rule does not necessarily depend upon whether the fiduciary intended to obtain an advantage to himself, but rather...