a marriage by a spouse to another within the period void, he dismissed the challenge of the defendant to the charge of bigamy, saying quietly, “We are not disposed to de- part from the construction given” in two longstanding precedents of the court.39


Constitutionality


His cases frequently addressed constitu- tional issues. In Cook v. Howland (1902), he supported Vermont’s statute requiring for- eign insurance company agents to do busi- ness through resident agents by declaring that corporations are not citizens as to Ar- ticle 4, § 2 of the U.S. Constitution, and so enjoy no guaranteed privileges exempting them from state regulation.40


His decision


in State v. Shedroi (1903) struck down the statute exempting Civil War soldiers from paying a peddler’s license tax.41


He wrote:


There is no basis upon which [a defense of the statute] can rest except that per- sons in the one class served as sol- diers in the Civil War, and were honor- ably discharged, and those of the oth- er class did not so serve, or were not honorably discharged. This classifica- tion is dependent solely on a condition of things long since past, and not on a present situation or condition, nor on a substantial distinction having refer- ence to the subject matter of the law enacted. The veterans were originally from no particular class, and when dis- charged from the army they returned to no particular class—they again be- came a part of the general mass of mankind, with the same constitution- al rights, privileges, immunities, bur- dens, and responsibilities as other cit- izens similarly circumstanced in law in the same jurisdiction.42


His decision in State v. Rosenthal (1903)


voided a city ordinance prohibiting brass knuckles, pistols, slung shots (sic), or oth- er concealed weapons without the written permission of the mayor or police chief, as a violation of Article 16 of the Vermont Constitution.43


A statute prohibiting intoxi-


cating liquors but exempting farmers and manufacturers of cider and native wines when they were manufactured in Vermont and not drunk on the premises was also struck down by the Court in a Watson deci- sion.44


In State v. Scampini (1904) he wrote,


The majority of the court are of the opinion that the unconstitutional pro- visions are severable from the rest of the act, and that the law will be quite complete and can be executed accord- ing to the intention of the lawmakers, without these limitations. But this can- not be done by treating as a nullity the provisions which exclude such sales from the operations of the act, for by so doing the exempted persons could be made amenable to the law and sub- ject to its penalties the same as others, which would confer upon the statute a positive operation beyond the legisla- tive intent. The unauthorized discrimi- nations consist in not permitting all per- sons within the same class to sell cider and wine in the same way. So much of the act, therefore, as renders other per- sons liable for selling cider by the barrel not to be drunk on the premises, and for selling wine not to be drunk on the premises, is inoperative and void.45


As Nathaniel Chipman had done before


him in 1791, Judge Watson upheld a deed based on a New York grant, confirming ti- tle by finding long acquiescence a waiver of any former New Hampshire grant and confirmation by New York, Davis v. Moyles (1903).46 Watson’s decision in State v. Peet (1908)


held part of the Vermont statute prohib- iting sale of the flesh of calves less than four weeks old or weighing less than fifty pounds dressed weight when killed inval- id to the extent that it applied to interstate commerce, but as applied to in-state com- merce, severable, and not invalidated.47


His


opinion in Durkee v. City of Barre (1909) ap- proved the statute authorizing a town to in- crease assessments on abutting property from paved streets, finding no impairment of contract.48


In Doty v. Village of Johnson


(1910), he held the Village’s acts increasing the height of a dam, to the extent it inter- fered with normal stream flow, in violation of Article 2 of the Vermont Constitution. No statute can authorize taking of private property from flowage of lands against the owner’s will if done for private purposes.49 The next year his opinion in State v. Haskell (1911) upheld a statute prohibiting sawdust, shavings, and mill refuse being put into the Lamoille River, even though the legislation largely applied to one mill owner.50 In 1916, Justice Watson authored the


Court’s decision in the matter of Martin v. Fullam. Thomas Martin, a longtime Brook- field resident who had taken the Freeman’s Oath and otherwise maintained his status as a freeman, was denied a ballot in the ref- erendum election of 1915 because he had not paid his poll tax. He challenged that de- cision, and the high court agreed.51


Firsts


Judge Watson wrote the majority opinion in the state’s most important public records case, Clement v. Graham (1906). Loveland Munson and Seneca Haselton dissented. The Court held that the auditor’s financial records were public, not proprietary, and that anyone could review them and have them copied, without having to explain why they wanted to see them.52


Hazen v. Perkins


(1918), the monument of environmental law and the first Vermont public trust doctrine decision, was one of Watson’s. The Court decided that a shoreland owner had no au- thority to lower the water so that he could repair his dock, even if previous owners had regularly done so, as there is no prescrip- tion against the sovereign, and the owner’s title extended only to the water’s edge.53 In Prouty v. Blanchard (1919), the Chief Justice wrote the first decision of the Court recognizing the obligations of loyalty and faithfulness of a real estate agent to a cli- ent.54


In the same term, Watson took the


lead in another broker dispute, sorting out whether a contract existed or not to serve as a broker.55


His decisions include a lead-


ing water rights case involving when pre- scriptive rights begin to accrue following floods,56 lands,57


a decision on how to handle lease and on judicial conflicts of interest.


In that case, Watson wrote: 12 THE VERMONT BAR JOURNAL • WINTER 2012 www.vtbar.org


Ruminations: A Hero Once, a Judge for Life


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