Atl. City v. France
| Decision Date | 15 June 1908 |
| Citation | 75 N.J.L. 910,70 A. 163 |
| Parties | ATLANTIC CITY v. FRANCE. |
| Court | New Jersey Supreme Court |
(Syllabus by the Court.)
Error to Supreme Court.
Action by Atlantic City against Adam W. France. Judgment for plaintiff (affirmed by Supreme Court, 65 Atl. 894). Defendant brings error. Affirmed.
C. L. Cole, for plaintiff in error.
Harry Wootton, for defendant in error.
The plaintiff in error was convicted, under an ordinance of Atlantic City, of being "the manager of an ice plant, within the limits of Atlantic City, to which was attached a smokestack connected with a furnace, which smokestack, on the day and days aforesaid, emitted dense smoke, which contained soot in sufficient quantity to permit the deposit of such soot on a surface within the limits of Atlantic City, as set forth in the complaint." The proceedings and conviction were removed to the Supreme Court by certiorari, where the judgment was affirmed, and the judgment of the Supreme Court is now here for review.
The reasons filed in the court below to which the attention of this court was directed are as follows:
First. That the city was without power to pass such an ordinance. We think that section 15 (P. L. 1902, p. 293), which empowers a city council to adopt such ordinances "as they may deem necessary and proper for the good government, order, protection of persons and property, and for the preservation of the public health and prosperity of such city and its inhabitants," is sufficiently broad and comprehensive to sustain an ordinance directed to the suppression of such use of a smokestack as causes to be emitted therefrom smoke containing soot in sufficient quantities to create a nuisance when deposited within the limits of Atlantic City. It would be impossible to define in an ordinance the density of the smoke, the quantity of soot to be deposited, or the precise effect required in each case, to constitute a nuisance; but we think that the creation and emission of dense smoke, containing soot in sufficient quantities to fall upon the surface of the city to the injury of persons, property, and the public health, is a wrong which the powers granted to the city authorizes it to suppress, if such a condition would be a nuisance at common law. We are also of opinion that, while the ordinance is somewhat broad in its terms, its application must be limited to smoke of such character as invades the rights of persons and property, or affects injuriously the public health of the inhabitants of the city, that being the extent of the powers granted, and that before a conviction under it can be lawfully had, such invasion and injury must be shown; for whether in a given case the quantity of dense smoke emitted, soot deposited, and the result therefrom, is an invasion of rights and property, or injurious to health, can only be conclusively determined by a...
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...exercise might result in the regulation of constitutional liberties and deprivation of certain rights. In Atlantic City v. France, 75 N.J.L. 910, 70 A. 163, 18 L.R.A.,N.S., 156, this court held valid an ordinance prohibiting the emission from smoke stacks of dense smoke containing soot in s......