(C O P Y)
27915
Attorney General's minute of 21st.June 1908.
451
TRECE
Red 30 JUL 06
I asked that these papers might be re-submitted to me because on further consideration it seems to me that Financial In- struction No.5 is ultra vires in so far as it assures to impose pecuniary liability upon public officers for the negligence or misconduct of inferior officers in their department.
in Lane v. Cotton (1 La.Raymond 246) it was held that certain postmaster were not liable for exchequer bills lost by the default of a clerk in the office.
The principle established by that case is that the superior officers are not pecuniarily responsible for the mis- carriage of inferior officers, for they are all alike the servants of the king. The inferior officers are not the servants of their Superiors in office; they are appointed and can only be removed by the King, and they are paid from the revenues of the Colony.
It is unreasonable that Superior Officers should be held responsible, pecuniarily, for the default of felles servants, when they do not appoint and cannot remove from office.
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