Cann v. Williams

8 Del. 78

• Court: Superior Court of Delaware
• Decided: July 5, 1864
• Status: Published

Opinion

J. B. Rodney.

The cases cited and the principle ruled by them in England, applied only to an action of covenant. But in the case referred to in this court, of Barratt v. Reed, 3 Harr. 24, which was an action of covenant, and not of debt, the court doubted and expressed no opinion, even though the action was in covenant, and it went off upon the discovery that there was an error in the office copy of the indentures on which the plaintiffs attorney had filed his declaration, and the correction of which avoided the question. And in that case the question arose on a demurrer, when the court had ample time to consider, and yet doubted whether an action of covenant even, would not lie at the suit of the apprentice on such an indenture as this. The promise, however, in this case, though under seal and in form a covenant, was by the defendant, the master, to pay the sum demanded, not to the father who signed the indenture, but to the apprentice himself and an action of debt would lie in his name on such a promise against him. Considered in that aspect, the indenture was not so much the cause, or foundation of the action, as it would have been, if the action had been in covenant, instead of debt.

By the Court.

The indenture of apprenticeship is admissible in evidence. This is a promise to pay the sum stipulated to the apprentice himself on his arrival at age, for services to be performed by him in the meanwhile. He has attained his majority and is now free, and is the only person actually interested in it, or has any actual claim to it, and he is therefore the only person now interested to demand it, or to _ sue for and recover it. Although the covenants contained in the indentures of apprenticeship, are not in terms expressly with the apprentice himself, neither are they in terms expressly with the father, or with the justice of the peace, or with the trustees of the poor when the binding is by such officers. Heither in their terms are they strictly inter partes in the true legal import of the phrase, but are general in their scope and character in this respect, and apply more immediately to the party bound as an apprentice by it, than any body else, and were so intended to be ; and as he is the party particularly and directly interested in the performance of this stipulation, for whose benefit alone it is designed in the law, it has long been considered and treated as a promise substantially made by the master to the apprentice himself, or as a covenant contracted with him, and that therefore on the expiration of his term and his arrival at age, he may sue in his own name the master for the breach of any of the stipulations in the indentures, in any form of action applicable to his claims arising therefrom.