Opinion
December 6, 1879.
Bastardy complaints when the mother has no legal residence in Rhode Island, may be brought by an Overseer of the Poor under Public Laws R.I. cap. 288, § 2, of March 19, 1873, or by the Superintendent of State Charities under § 15 of the same chapter.
EXCEPTIONS to the Court of Common Pleas.
This case was a bastardy complaint brought by George W. Wightman, Overseer of the Poor of the city of Providence. The record shows that the defendant was found guilty by the Justice Court of Providence and appealed to the Court of Common Pleas, where a verdict was given against him. The evidence produced in the Court of Common Pleas showed that the parents of the unmarried mother lived and died in Ireland; that they never lived in this State; that the mother owned no property of any kind; that she was born in Ireland and had lived in Providence for five years.
The defendant thereupon asked the court to dismiss the complaint, on the ground that the mother having no legal settlement in Providence, or in the State, Gen. Stat. R.I. cap. 64, the complaint should have been brought by the Superintendent of State Charities under Pub. Laws R.I. cap. 288, § 15, of March 19, 1873, and not as it in fact was, by the Overseer of the Poor of Providence, under § 2 of that act.
The court refused the defendant's request and the defendant excepted.
Stephen A. Cooke, Jr., Assistant City Solicitor of the city of Providence, for plaintiff.
George J. West, for defendant.
The court is of opinion that the power conferred on the Overseers of the Poor of the several towns of the State by Pub. Laws R.I. cap. 288, § 2, is not limited by the subsequent grant of power in § 15 to the Superintendent of State Charities and Corrections, but that the power, to the extent of the subsequent grant, is conferred concurrently, and may be exercise either by an Overseer or by the Superintendent, according as the one or the other is the first to institute proceedings. The exceptions are therefore overruled.
Exceptions overruled.