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17 Wend. 85

Avery v. Slack

New York Supreme Court

Decided May 15, 1837

New York Supreme Court · decided 1837-05-15

Error from the Chenango common pleas. Avery and Lathrop, as overseers of the poor of the town of Sherburne, commenced a suit by summons, in a justice’s court, against Slack.

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“Resistance to the extent .of a man’s power,”

quoted by 1 later decision, including Singer Manufacturing Co. v. Wright

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1837-05-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 26 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently September 1914 · most notably Jones v. . Jones (1888), Singer Manufacturing Co. v. Wright (1891)

1 district · 24 state decisions

80183718401850186018701880189019001910decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

¶1By the Court,

Cowen, J.

¶2The statute upon which the decision of the common pleas proceeded is thus: “ Upon every process issued for the purpose of compelling the appearance of the defendant to any action for the recovery of any penalty or forfeiture, shall be endorsed a general reference to the statute by.which such action is given, in the following form; 1 according to the provisions of the statute regulating the rate of interest on money,’ or 1 according to the provisions of the statute concerning sheriffs,’ as the case may require, or in some other general terms referring to such statute” (2 R. S. 481, §7). It is impossible to say, with any thing like precision, in what form the endorsement in this case should have been made. In one of the examples given by the act, that of “ the statute concerning sheriffs,” the endorsement would be confined in its reference neither to section, title, article, nor even part nor volume of the statute book; for the provisions concerning sheriffs are probably more multifarious and diversified in their objects than those relating to any other officer or subject. I [87] think, however, we must say, that the object of the statute was to give the defendant notice, by endorsement, of the offence for which he is prosecuted. The endorsement in question answers no such object. The statute “ of the internal police of the state” (1 R. S. 612 to 717, 1st ed. and 621 to 712, 2d ed.J runs through about 100 pages. It contains twenty-one titles, all relating to objects entirely distinct and disconnected, and several of them imposing a great variety of penalties to be collected by the overseers of the poor. How was it possible, under this endrrsement, for the defend*52ant to know the action was for violating the excise law, tit. 9, or the statute against gaming, tit. 8, art. 3? Both give penalties to the overseers which may he of the same amount. The reference here would have been quite easy to title 9, which would probably have been sufficient, because it relates to the excise and regulates inns and taverns. It would, however, have been still better, had the precise section been named. As the endorsement stood, it was the merest evasion of what the statute requiring it must have intended. To disregard this objection would be to repeal the statute.

¶3But it is said the defendant waived the objection by pleading over. Not so. He made a specific objection in due season, and that being overruled, he was compelled to plead or give up all he had to say on the merits. Resistance, to the extent of a man s power, is certainly a new kind of waiver.

¶4The court below were clearly right, and the judgment must be affirmed.

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