Vermont Bar Journal, Vol. 40, No. 2 Spring 2014, Vol. 40, No. 1 | Page 11

Jamaica in the Vermont Supreme Court

There are sixteen reported cases in the
Vermont Reports in which Jamaica is a party. Jamaica prevailed in nine of them. They
involve a range of subjects common to municipal life at different eras. Curiously, of
the sixteen reported decisions on appeal,
only one appears after 1887, a tax appeal
decision from 2003. One hundred and sixteen years pass without an appeal. Not that
the town wasn’t busy with lawsuits in the intervening years, but whatever matters troubled the fathers and mothers that led the
town were settled or resolved at the trial
court level. This may well reflect the shrinking population, an aversion to lengthening lawsuits, or the centripetal influence
that came with centralization of services to
state government, such as the needs of the
poor and major highways. Or maybe it was
just good fortune. But wars are fought in
court, sometimes bitterly, sometimes serially, and it’s fair to conclude that the number of cases over the town’s first century
that made it to the Supreme Court reflected the unsettled nature of critical areas of
the civil and common law, and the perception that important issues ought to be decided at the appellate level, where they
were printed and published, to provide a
permanent record of the evolution of the
law. A town like Jamaica goes to court to
protect its integrity and its fisc.
Paupers
The earliest reported case in the Jamaica
canon of law is a pauper appeal from 1824.
This is one of hundreds of cases decided
by the Vermont Supreme Court over the
years, where one town claimed that the obligation for paying the support of poor persons should fall on another town, because
the pauper was a resident of that other
town. Jerusha Cook, a resident of Guilford, came to Jamaica, impoverished, and
she was supported by the town. She later
returned to Guilford for a time, and then
came back to Jamaica, where she again fell
on the mercy of the overseers of the poor,
and died. Jamaica sued Guilford for the expenses of both periods. At the trial court
Jamaica prevailed, but on appeal the Supreme Court affirmed only the award of the
first period of support, finding no statutory support for the proposition of recovery
in the common law or statute for a town
that takes a peripatetic pauper back and
supports her on a return visit.23 A second
decision was issued in this case, granting a
new trial, after Chief Justice Richard Skinner ruled that Jamaica had failed to mature
its claim for expenses for keeping Jerusha,
having given notice twelve, instead of thirwww.vtbar.org

ty, days prior to the session of the court to
which it is made returnable.24 Technical failures had serious consequences.
Jamaica fought with Dummerston in
1833 over a pauper, settled in Jamaica,
who was living temporarily in Dummerston.25 Delia Taft had gained a legal settlement in Jamaica, then moved to Brattleboro, where she was warned out. This
meant receiving a notice from the town
overseers of the poor that had the effect
of ensuring that she was not going to be a
charge of the town if she became impoverished. She lived more than a year in Brattleboro, then moved on to Dummerston,
where she was housed, fed, and clothed by
the town. Dummerston then sued Jamaica,
and Jamaica defended by claiming that the
Brattleboro warning was defective. Judge
Charles K. Williams began his decision by
explaining that strict compliance was required for such warnings, but that immaterial and unintentional divergences would
not vitiate the effect of the notice. Jamaica argued the notice was deficient because
it did not include the words from the statute, “Hereof fail not, but of this precept.”
This was not persuasive, and Jamaica was
charged with the costs of maintaining Delia
in Dummerston. The record does not explain what happened to Delia, although it
would be common practice to have had her
returned to Jamaica’s overseers.
Russell Clayton, a pauper, was ordered
removed from Jamaica to Towns