Towns litigated each other over pauper settlement to avoid paying relief costs

Evidence

The law itself had a callous core. One issue, frequently litigated, bore on the question of whether a pauper was “settled” in this or that county or town. The place where a pauper was “settled” was responsible for his upkeep. Under a New Hampshire law of 1809, for example, a town could support a pauper who was not really “settled” there. But the town could then sue the town where the pauper was legally “settled” and recover its costs. Law reports are full of cases, in which towns and counties sued each other over the issue of “settlement.” — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 1208

Categorization

• XREF: Directly extends ch11’s ‘warning out’ cost-shifting theme — the same logic of shifting poor-relief burden onto outsiders persists after independence in settlement disputes.