Town of St. Johnsbury v. Town of Granby

• Decision Date: 01 December 1964
• Docket Number: No. 292,292
• Citation: 124 Vt. 367,205 A.2d 422
• Parties: TOWN OF ST. JOHNSBURY v. TOWN OF GRANBY.
• Court: Vermont Supreme Court

Page 422

205 A.2d 422

124 Vt. 367

TOWN OF ST. JOHNSBURY v. TOWN OF GRANBY.

No. 292.

Supreme Court of Vermont.

Dec. 1, 1964.

John A. Swainbank, St. Johnsbury, for plaintiff.

Arthur L. Graves, St. Johnsbury, for defendant.

Before HOLDEN, C. J., and SHANGRAW, BARNEY, SMITH and KEYSER, JJ.

KEYSER, Justice.

This is an action brought by plaintiff town in Caledonia Municipal Court under the provisions of 33 V.S.A. § 782 of Chapter 15 relating to municipal poor relief. Defendant answered in general denial. Trial was by jury. Defendant rested at the close of plaintiff's case and each party moved for a directed verdict. The court denied plaintiff's motion and granted defendant's, entered judgment thereon with appeal by plaintiff.

The statute on which plaintiff brings suit. 33 V.S.A. § 782, provides:

'An overseer of a town furnishing relief to a poor person shall within thirty days from the time of first providing relief give notice to the overseer of the town in this state wherein such poor person has his settlement, or to the commissioner, if such poor person is a state charge. The overseer so notified shall then furnish such poor person relief or remove him to the town in this state where he has his settlement, provided that such removal will work no undue hardship on such poor person or his family. If such overseer so notified fails within sixty days after receipt of such notice to remove such poor person or furnish him relief, the town furnishing such relief may recover therefor in an action on this statute against the town wherein such poor person has his settlement. A single action may be brought for all assistance so furnished without other or further notice. The failure of an overseer to reply within fifteen days to notice as provided in this section, shall be deemed prima facie evidence that the poor person in question had a settlement in said town.'

The furnishing of relief to poor persons in need of assistance by municipalities is governed by statute. There are no common-law liabilities and there are no equities between towns respecting the care and support of paupers. The whole matter is purely statutory and where the statute imposes no liability, there is none. Groton v. Strafford, 123 Vt. 432, 192 A.2d 464. St. Albans Hospital v. City of St. Albans, 107 Vt. 64, 65, 176 A. 304.

The testimony of the town manager and overseer of St. Johnsbury and Roy Irwin, the recipient of relief, constitutes all the evidence in the case.

The facts which the jury acting as reasonable persons could have found therefrom are as follows: Roy Irwin is unmarried and works as a woodsman. He was born June 15, 1915 and lived in St. Johnsbury and Passumpsic until the age of sixteen. He then went to live with his cousin, Vera Bishop, in Granby until he was eighteen when he joined the Civilian Conservation Corps for a year. He worked the winter of 1934-1935 in the woods in Passumpsic and in 1936 he 'went back to Granby'. That fall he rejoined the C.C.C. until 1941, worked a short time in Passumpsic before going into the army for thirty-nine months. Since that time he has worked at various places, returning off and on to his cousin's home to live between jobs. In 1946, he worked in Passumpsic and 'stayed at home'. He also made short visits at the homes of his brothers and sisters outside of Granby. He lived at Vera Bishop's home again for part of 1962. The Town of Granby listed Irwin for poll taxes for most of the years from 1952 to 1961 inclusive, especially 1956 through 1961. In the Spring of 1962, Irwin went to Nashua, New Hampshire, to work. Before Irwin left for Nashua, Vera Bishop put all articles of clothing and other personal effects which Irwin had at her home in a trunk and took them to the home of one of Irwin's brothers in St. Johnsbury and left them there. After about three months in Nashua, he injured his finger which resulted in his coming to live with his brother in St. Johnsbury in early November. It was from there that he entered Brightlook Hospital in St. Johnsbury because of a badly infected finger.

Irwin entered the hospital December 29, 1962, and the hospital notified the Overseer of St. Johnsbury on December 31, 1962, of this fact and sent the credit application. On January 2, 1963, the overseer of St. Johnsbury sent the notice required by Section 782, supra, to the overseer of Granby by certified mail, return receipt requested, in proper form, that St. Johnsbury would look to Granby, the town of settlement, for reimbursement of Irwin's care. The signed return receipt was received by the overseer of St. Johnsbury and shows the notice was delivered on January 4, 1963. There never was any reply to this notice by the Granby overseer. Thereafter, plaintiff paid the hospital bill of $318.06.

The plaintiff town seeks to recover from the defendant town money it expended for this relief furnished to Roy Irwin at Brightlook Hospital. Plaintiff claims Irwin was a poor person whose settlement was in Granby thus giving it the right to reimbursement under the statute, 33 V.S.A. § 825.

Defendant's argument below on its motion and here in its brief is that Irwin, at the time of his admission to the hospital, was a resident of St. Johnsbury, had no residence in Granby and therefore was not a transient person. Further, that under these circumstances, plaintiff failed to prove an agreement by the overseer of St. Johnsbury to become liable for the hospital bill as required under the provisions of 33 V.S.A. § 703.

The first question for consideration is whether Irwin was a transient at the time he entered the hospital.

Under this statute, 33 V.S.A. § 703, 'no town' shall be liable for medical, surgical or hospital care furnished a poor person except by agreement with the overseer or a selectman wherein the poor person resides or is found at the time relief is required. The statute specifically provides that it 'shall not apply to such care furnished transient persons.'

Thus, if Irwin became and was a transient person at the time he left the home of his brother and entered the hospital, the provisions of this statute do not apply here. Otherwise, it does.

The meaning of the word 'transient' as used in the statute, 33 V.S.A. § 821, is defined in St. Albans Hospital v. City of St. Albans, 107 Vt. 59, 176 A. 302, to mean 'merely, a person away from home.' It is to be noted that in that case the hospital received as patients persons residing outside the City of St. Albans and the defendant city was held liable. The court went on to say: 'This has been our law for more than fifty years. It is the doctrine of Town of Danville v. Sheffield, 50 Vt. 243, 247. It is, almost literally, the definition given by Judge Barrett in Goodell v. Mt. Holly, 51 Vt. 423, 426, a case which was cited without criticism in Wilbur v. Calais, 90 Vt. 335, 341, 98 A. 913, and referred to for a definition of the word in Catlin v. Town of Georgia, 103 Vt. 97, 99, 152 A. 89. And finally, in Town of Randolph v. Lyon, 106 Vt. 495, 175 A. 1, 3, this definition was approved and applied and the law of the subject restated.'

This St. Albans case, supra, was followed by a second one, St. Albans Hospital v. City of St. Albans, 107 Vt. 64, 176 A. 304. In that case the poor persons relieved by the hospital were residents of the defendant city. Recovery was denied on the ground that suit was brought on P.L. 3923, now 33 V.S.A. § 704, under which there is no provision for a recovery by suit. However, Powers, Chief Justice, said: 'It is plain enough, from what we said in the other case, that a recovery could have been had therein for the services and expenses here sued for.' The court thus held that the plaintiff could have recovered in the first case for the relief furnished to the poor persons residing in the City of St. Albans where the hospital was located, the subject of the second suit.

Following the St. Albans Hospital cases, supra, the decision in DeGoesbriand Hospital v. Alburg, 122 Vt. 275, 169 A.2d 360, was handed down by this Court in 1961. The question there presented was whether the person entering the hospital was a transient. The Court reviewed the two St. Albans cases, supra, and Goodell v. Mt. Holly, supra. At page 282 of the opinion, in 122 Vt., at page 365 of the opinion in 169 A.2d, it held: 'Applying the principles of law set forth above to the factual situation now before us when Arthur Perreault entered the DeGoesbriand Hospital he was a person away from home, wherever that home might be, and was therefore a transient.'

Webster defines 'home' to be one's dwelling place. In Wilmington v. Somerset, 35 Vt. 232, the court in construing the statute relating to the settlement of paupers, said at page 236: 'The dwelling place or home here referred to is evidently one that the pauper has obtained, procured, or occupied, of his own will, or through some voluntary agency of his own, or that of connections or friends, a place of abode that can properly be called his, in the selection or enjoyment of which he may be supposed to have been a free agent, or at least one that he was allowed to occupy and enjoy as his home, independent of the compulsory charity of the town.'

The evidence is undisputed that Irwin had a brother living on Eastern Avenue in St. Johnsbury Village, and that Irwin came to St. Johnsbury from Nashua, New Hampshire early in November, 1962, and that he went to live in the home of his brother and made his home there. He was living there at the time he left for, and entered, Brightlook Hospital on December 29, 1962.

Applying to these facts the principles of the law enunciated in the cases cited above, we hold that Roy Irwin was a transient person in need of relief within the meaning of 33 V.S.A. § 821. He became a transient person upon his leaving his home at his brother's house in St. Johnsbury and entering the hospital.

In view of this holding, it is clear that section 703 is not material here since it does not...