Horace Gray

“ But these duties are imposed on the selectmen and the clerk as public officers, not as agents of the town. They are not made duties of the inhabitants of the town in their corporate capacity, but official duties of those charged with their performance. The neglect of the officers to file or record a sufficient notice of a town meeting is theirs only, and not the neglect of the town. So far as the town is concerned, the utmost effect of an omission to record the notice is to authorize its contents to be proved by other evidence. ”

“ By the statutes of Connecticut, it is made the duty of the selectmen to superintend the concerns of the town, to adjust and settle all claims against it, and to draw orders on the treasurer for their payment; to keep a true and regular account of all the expenditures of the town, ad to exhibit the same at the annual meeting ”

“ Palmer, 22 Conn. 107, the vote of the town, which was presumed to be valid without proof of the warning, was a vote passed at an annual meeting 25 years before, accepting a discontinuance in due form by the selectmen of an ancient highway, which was proved to have been disused ever since some time before that vote, and which there was strong ground, therefore, for presuming to have been discontinued. ”

“ Any ratification of an act previously unauthorized must, in order to bind the principal, be with full knowledge of all the material facts. Owings v. Hull, 9 Pet. 607; Bennecke v. Insurance Co., 105 U.S. 355. And no estoppel in pais can be created, except by conduct which the person setting up the estoppel has the right to rely upon, and does in fact rely and act upon. ”