LaSalle County IL Archives Court.....Lasalle, V Ottawa 1850
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Deb Haines http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00003.html#0000719 May 26, 2008, 12:35 am

Source: Records Of Cases Illinois
Written: 1850

The Board of Supervisors of the County of La Salle, plaintiffs in error, v. 
The Town of South Ottawa, defendants in error.

Agreed case from La Salle.

The board of supervisors, in such counties as have adopted the township 
organization, are required to provide for the support of the paupers of the 
county. (a) There is no foundation for a distinction between county and town 
paupers.

The town of South Ottawa brought an action in the La Salle Circuit Court, 
against the board of supervisors of that county, to recover the sum of one 
hundred dollars, for the support and care of a pauper, from June 1, 1850, to 
March 25, 1851. A jury was waived, and the cause was submitted to the court 
for trial. T. L. Dickey, Judge, presided, the finding was for the plaintiffs, 
damages assessed at fifty-two dollars and fifty cents, and a judgment 
accordingly. The defendants excepted to the finding of the court. The 
following agreement was filed of record. "It is hereby agreed that the only 
questions of law, arising in this case are as follows: Are the board of 
supervisors of those counties organized under the act entitled, 'An act to 
provide for township and county organization, under which every county may 
organize whenever a majority of voters of such county, at any general 
election, shall so determine (approved, February 12, 1840), required by that 
law to provide for the support and maintenance of paupers, or are the towns of 
such counties required by the same law to support the paupers within their 
limits? It is agreed also that La Salle county is organized under said act, 
and that the town of South Ottawa is one of the organized towns of said 
county. It is further agreed that if the Supreme Court decide that the board 
is required by the act aforesaid, to support paupers, the judgment herein 
shall be affirmed, and if the said court decide that the towns are to support 
their own paupers, the judgment is to be reversed."

E. S. Leland, for plaintiffs in error.

Champlin & Wallace, for defendant in error:

Towns are not liable, at common law, for the support of paupers: 14 Mass. R., 
399; such liability must be created by express statute.

The statutes of this state have created a liability in the county to support 
paupers: R. S., ch. 80, secs. 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 12, and 15. This liability has 
not been changed by the township law of February 12, 1849: Art. 5, sec. 2; 
Art. 6, sec. 2; Art. 11, sec. 1; Art. 11, sec. 5; Art. 16, secs. 3, 13; 
Township Law of February 12, 1849. These are all the provisions of the act of 
February 12, 1849, in any manner relating to the subject of paupers.

It could not have been the intention of the legislature that enacted the law 
of February 12, 1849, to change the liability of the county, and impose it 
upon the towns. The act of Februry 17, 1851, which remodels and repeals the 
act of February, 1849, contains the same provisions as the act of 1849: 
Session Laws, 1851, p. 35. That same legislature passed a law requiring the 
towns of the counties of Lake and Tazewell, on certain conditions, to support 
the paupers within their limits. Session Laws, 1851, pp. 183, 195; Art. 11, 
secs. 1, 5; and Art. 16, sec. 13, Township Law of 1849, are conflicting, and 
the latter section must prevail: Dwarris' Stat., 658; 6 Dane's Digest, 588, 
sec. 17; Ibid, 591, sec. 8; 1 Kent's Com., 463.

Trumbull, J. This case presents the question, whether the board of supervisors 
of such counties as have adopted the township organization are required to 
provide for the support of the paupers of the county, or whether each town is 
required to support its own paupers.

At the time the county of La Salle adopted the township organization, and at 
this time, in all counties where it has not been adopted, the poor are a 
county charge, for the support of which, the county commissioners' court is 
required to provide. Unless, therefore, there is something in the act 
providing for a township organization, which changes the burden of providing 
for the poor, from the county to the towns, it would seem that the county 
would still be required to make that provision.

That the act to provide for township and county organization contains no 
direct provision, making it the duty of each town to provide for its own 
paupers, is admitted; but it is said that such a duty is inferrable from 
various provisions of that act. If this were so, it would be a sufficient 
answer to all such inferences to say, that the act makes no provision whatever 
whereby the towns are to raise the means to support their poor. But the 
legislature have not left this question doubtful or uncertain. In the 
thirteenth section of the sixteenth article of the act to provide for township 
and county organization, in force April 16, 1849, it is expressly declared 
whose duty it shall be to provide for the poor. That section is as 
follows: "It shall be the duty of the board of supervisors to take charge of 
the poor, and the management of the poor-houses in their respective counties, 
that is given to the county commissioners' court, and the overseers of the 
poor of the several towns shall be accountable to, and their compensation 
shall be audited by, the board of supervisors, and paid by the county."

It is difficult to conceive how the legislature could more clearly have 
expressed their intention, that the board of supervisors should take charge of 
the poor at the expense of the county.

There is no foundation in the act for a distinction between county paupers and 
town paupers. Such a distinction had never, at that time, been recognized as 
existing in this state, and the plain, obvious meaning of the act is, that all 
the poor of the county shall be maintained at the expense of the county.

The judgment of the Circuit Court is affirmed.

Judgment affirmed.

------------------------------
(a) The body having power to levy and collect taxes and make appropriations 
for the support of the poor is the body legally liable for their support, and 
this body, in Illinois, is the county.  Board of Supervisors v. Plant, 42 
Ill., 325.

Additional Comments:
Reports of Cases Determined in the Supreme Court of the State of Illinois from 
November Term, 1850, to June Term, 1851, both inclusive by E. Peck, Counsellor 
at Law. Volume XII. Reprinted from the Original Edition, with Annotations by 
William Gordon McMillan of the Chicago Bar. Callaghan & Company, Chicago, Ill. 
1881.

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