Handy v. Brown

U.S. District Court

Decided April 15, 1810

U.S. District Court · decided 1810-04-15

Habeas corpus and petition to discharge an apprentice. [Joel] Brown, the master, being about to leave Georgetown, assigned the apprentice, with his shop, to another person. The articles of apprenticeship were merely a contract between the boy (who was sixteen years old) and the master. There are only three modes of binding under the act of Maryland, namely, by the orphans’ court, by two justices of the peace, or by the father.

Decided 1810-04-15

¶1THE COURT

(FITZHUGH, Circuit Judge,

¶2absent) discharged the petitioner; it not being a binding within Act Assem. Md. 1793, c. 45. If the indenture is binding as an agreement, still it does not create the relative obligations of master and apprentice, under the act; and if it did, the 14th section forbids the assignment except in the case of the death of the master.