Directors of Home for Destitute v. Fayette County Almshouse

Citations

• 72 Pa. Super. 491
• 1919 Pa. Super. LEXIS 353

Syllabus

<p>Poor law — Settlement — Removal from jurisdiction — Acts of June IS, 1886, P. L. 589, and April 6, 1905, P. L. 118.</p> <p>A person who is chargeable as a pauper in one district and is receiving aid from it, cannot change his residence to another district as long as such assistance continues.</p> <p>No matter how poor a man may be, so long as he is able to support himself and his family and not likely to become chargeable, he has the right to choose his domicile or remove from one county to another, and thus change his legal settlement. But as regards one who is a pauper and unable to support himself, and who calls on the State for aid and assistance to do so, the State has a right to say how he shall be supported and where, and can require him, while being so supported at public expense, to stay in his last legal settlement, and, if he attempts to go elsewhere, will remove him there.</p> <p>Head, J., dissents.</p>