Opinion
Decided June, 1879.
The use of a debtor's horse to convey his children to school and church is evidence on the question whether the horse is required for actual use, and exempt from attachment.
TROVER, for a horse attached by the defendant, a deputy sheriff. The plaintiff claimed that it was exempt from attachment. He was superintendent of the Grafton county poor-farm. Besides three horses owned by the county, he kept his own horse on the farm; and his evidence tended to show that he used it to go to the store, post-office, and mill, buy cattle for the farm, convey his children to school three or four times a week, and his family to church on Sundays. Subject to the plaintiff's exception, the court refused to instruct the jury that if the plaintiff required the horse in educating his children, such use would be actual within the meaning of the statute, — and instructed them that it must be required and used in gaining his livelihood, and not merely to occasionally convey his children to school and his family to church. Verdict for the defendant.
Bingham, Mitchell Batchellor, for the plaintiff.
The plaintiff is entitled to the exemption of his horse when required for "other actual use," as well as "farming or teaming purposes." The statutes impose upon parents the duty of educating their children (Gen. Laws, c. 91, s. 14), and provide in certain cases for the conveyance of children to school at the public expense. Gen. Laws, c. 86, ss. 24, 25, 26, 27. The statute of exemption should receive a liberal construction. Peverly v. Sayles,
Carpenter, for the defendant.
Actual use by the debtor, not by his family, exempts a horse from attachment. Somers v. Emerson, 58 N.H. 49. The purpose of the statute is to protect for poor debtors their means of subsistence. Wilkinson v. Alley, 45 N.H. 551; Patten v. Smith, 4 Conn. 455; Caswell v. Keith, 12 Gray 354. It is a statute of details, and is not to be extended beyond its fair import. Somers v. Emerson, supra. It is a fundamental principle, that all a man's property shall be liable for his debts (Remmington v. Cady, 10 Conn. 48; Davenport v. Lacon, 17 Conn. 281), and a statute in derogation of the rights of creditors should receive strict construction. Patten v. Smith, supra; Buckingham v. Billings, 13 Mass. 85.
Beasts of the plow, not exceeding a yoke of oxen or a horse, when required for farming or teaming purposes, or other actual use, are exempt from attachment and levy on execution. Laws of 1871, c. 30; Gen. Laws, c. 224, s. 2. The "other actual" use is such other labor as the reasonable necessities of the debtor require. Somers v. Emerson, 58 N.H. 48.
The duty of parents to educate their children is of the greatest importance. 1 Bl. Com. 450, 451. At common law this is said to be a moral but not a legal obligation. Cooley on Torts 40. Blackstone says it is a defect in the municipal laws of some countries that parents are not constrained to perform this duty. Our constitution declares the promotion of morality and learning to be a public duty, and ten chapters of the statutes are devoted to the cause of education. Const., Part 1, Art. 6; Part 2, Art. 83; Gen. Laws, cc. 85-94. The penalty imposed by Gen. Laws, c. 91, s. 16, for not sending children to school, illustrates the legal necessities of, the plaintiff. It is not a matter of law that the use of a horse for conveyance cannot be necessary in the discharge of the duty of supplying a family with mental and moral instruction. The plaintiff's use of his horse for that and other purposes should have been submitted to the jury in a more liberal way, on the broad question whether the horse was required for the plaintiff's actual use. While his mere unperformed duty of using his horse for any purpose is no ground of exemption, his duty and business, and his use of his horse in that duty and business, are evidence on the question of requirement for actual use.
Verdict set aside.
SMITH, J., did not sit: the others concurred.