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40 Me. 151

Weeks v. Merrow

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine

Decided July 1, 1855

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine · decided 1855-07-01

On Pacts Agreed. Assumpsit, for board of defendant’s minor son. The parties lived in different towns and had no acquaintance with each other. Defendant’s minor son loft his home, ample provision being there made for him, without his father’s consent or knowledge, and worked elsewhere. He subsequently boarded with plaintiff, whose business it was to accommodate boarders, to recover pay for which this suit was brought.

Relies on Angel v. McLellan

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1855-07-01

How this case has been cited

Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently August 1990

1 federal appellate · 7 state decisions

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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 →

Rice, J.

¶1Where a child leaves his parent’s house, voluntai’ily, for the purpose of seeking his fortune in the world, or to avoid the discipline and restraint so necessary for the *152due regulation of families, he carries with him no credit; and the parent is under no obligation to pay for his support Angel v. McLellan, 16 Mass. 28.

¶2This doctrine is well sustained by authority, and though, at times, it may operate with apparent severity, is based upon sound principles. To permit a minor, at his election, to depart from his parent’s house, with power to charge that parent with Ms support, would tend to the destruction of all parental authority, and invert the order of family government.

¶3If a minor is forced out into the world by the cruelty or improper conduct of the parent, and' is in want of necessaries, such necessaries may be supplied, and the value thereof collected of the parent, on an implied contract. Such, however, does not seem to be the case at bar.

¶4According to the agreement a nonsuit must be entered.

¶5Plaintiff nonsuit.

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