Marden v. City of Boston

• Decision Date: 08 January 1892
• Citation: 29 N.E. 588,155 Mass. 359
• Parties: MARDEN, Treasurer, v. CITY OF BOSTON.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

155 Mass. 359

29 N.E. 588

MARDEN, Treasurer,

v.CITY OF BOSTON.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

Jan. 8, 1892.

Exceptions from superior court, Suffolk county; JAMES R. DUNBAR, Judge.

Action of contract brought by George A. Marden, treasurer of the commonwealth, against the city of Boston, to recover expenses and charges for the support of Catherine Callahan, an insane pauper, at the Taunton Lunatic Hospital. It was alleged that Catherine was the widow of Michael Callahan, deceased. Verdict for plaintiff. Defendant excepts. Exceptions overruled.

J.N. Marshall, M.L. Hamblet, and J.C. Burke, for plaintiff.

T.W. Proctor, for defendant.

KNOWLTON, J.

The evidence in regard to Michael Callahan was sufficient to warrant a finding that he was dead. In 1867 he went away from Boston, where his wife and children and others of his relatives lived, and, although they have made efforts to learn his whereabouts, they have not heard from him since that time. He had previously made an application to the United States government for a pension, and a pension was granted to him, but the authorities in charge of the pension department at Washington have been unable to ascertain where he is, or whether he is dead or alive. These facts, with nothing to control the inferences naturally to be drawn from them, point to his death, and warrant a finding in favor of the plaintiff on this part of the case. Stockbridge, Petitioner, 145 Mass. 517, 14 N.E.Rep. 928; Bowditch v. Jordan, 131 Mass. 323;Flynn v. Coffee, 12 Allen, 133;Loring v. Steineman, 1 Metc. (Mass.) 204, 211.

His widow, Catherine Callahan, continued to reside in Boston until October, 1887, and gained a settlement there by virtue of Pub.St. c. 83, § 1, cls. 6, 7. The first part of the seventh clause is as follows: “The provisions of the preceding clause shall apply to married women who have not a settlement derived by marriage under the provisions of the first clause, and to widows.” The argument of the defendant, that widows who have a settlement derived from their former husbands are not included, is untenable. They were included in St.1874, c. 274, § 1, which is now the sixth clause, above quoted, before the passage of St.1879, c. 242, § 2, which is embodied in the seventh clause. This last statute was passed after the decision in Somerville v. Boston, 120 Mass. 574, in which it was held that St.1874, c. 274, § 1, did not apply to married women; and the purpose of it was to change...