Opinion
Decided June, 1900.
Assumpsit, and not mandamus, is the proper remedy to enforce the payment of an appropriation made by a municipal corporation.
PETITION, for a writ of mandamus, to compel the payment to the plaintiffs of an appropriation made by the city of Portsmouth "for decorating graves of soldiers and sailors." Facts found by the court. One half of the appropriation was paid to the General Gilman Marston Command of the Union Veterans' Union, and one half was offered to the plaintiffs, who claimed the whole under section 1, chapter 34, of the Laws of 1899. The petition was dismissed, subject to the plaintiffs' exception.
Samuel W. Emery, for the plaintiffs.
Calvin Page, pro se.
Mandamus is "an extraordinary remedy granted only in cases where the usual modes of procedure and forms of remedy are powerless to afford relief." State v. Railroad, 62 N.H. 29, 34. This is not such a case. If the plaintiffs are entitled to the appropriation, they can recover it in an action of assumpsit against the city. Hillsborough County v. Londonderry, 43 N.H. 451; Jones v. Chester, 67 N.H. 191.
Exception overruled.
YOUNG, J., did not sit: the others concurred.