Borough of Oradell v. State Bd. of Tax Appeals

• Decision Date: 21 May 1940
• Docket Number: No. 5.,5.
• Parties: BOROUGH OF ORADELL v. STATE BOARD OF TAX APPEALS et al.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

13 A.2d 479

BOROUGH OF ORADELL

v. STATE BOARD OF TAX APPEALS et al.

No. 5.

Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey.

May 21, 1940.

Appeal from Supreme Court.

Certiorari proceeding by the Borough of Oradell, a municipal corporation, against the State Board of Tax Appeals, the Bergen County Board of Taxation, and the Hackensack Water Company to review a judgment of the State Board of Tax Appeals dismissing the appeal of the Borough of Oradell from a judgment of the County Board of Taxation. From a judgment of the Supreme Court, 123 N.J. L. 86, 8 A.2d 100, dismissing the writ of certiorari, the Borough of Oradell appeals.

Reversed and remanded for further proceedings.

George W. Babcock, of Hackensack, for appellant.

Morrison, Lloyd & Morrison, of Hackensack (William J. Morrison, Jr., of Hackensack, of counsel), for respondent Hackensack Water Company.

HEHER, Justice.

The State Board of Tax Appeals was invested with jurisdiction to entertain the appeal taken from the judgment of the Bergen County Board of Taxation. The conceded jurisdictional lack did not make certiorari the exclusive remedy.

The question is, after all, one of statutory construction; and we read the statute as clothing the State Board of Tax Appeals with appellate cognizance of a judgment of a county board of taxation coram non judice.

Section 54:2-35 of the Revision of 1937, N.J.S.A. 54:2-35, provides that "Any action or determination of a county board of taxation may be appealed for review to the state board of tax appeals under such rules and regulations as it may from time to time prescribe, and it may review such action and proceedings and give such judgment therein as it may think proper." And section 54:2-39 prescribes that "Any appellant who is dissatisfied with the judgment of the county board of taxation upon his appeal, may appeal from that judgment to the state board of tax appeals by filing a petition of appeal to the board," and so on, "and the state board shall proceed summarily to hear and determine all such appeals and render its judgment thereon as soon as may be."

These provisions are all inclusive. The language does not reveal a purpose to exclude judgments void for want of jurisdiction. The ruling principle is contained in Williamson v. Middlesex Common Pleas, 42 N.J.L. 386. There the point in controversy was whether the Pleas had jurisdiction, under a statute of like purport, to entertain an appeal and try the cause de novo where the justice's court had no jurisdiction of the subject matter and Mr. Justice Reed, granting that "the assumption that the jurisdiction of the appellate tribunal is dependent, in all respects, upon the fact of the jurisdiction of the court below * * * upon first impression, has an appearance of soundness," declared: "But this does not involve the right to bring the cause into the appellate court. The want of power in the appellate court to render a judgment upon the merits, does not defeat the right to adjudge as to any question arising upon an objection urged in abatement of the action or to the jurisdiction of the court. Every court is called upon to determine the scope of its own jurisdiction. When such jurisdiction is questioned in the course of a legal proceeding, its determination is a question of law involved in the judgment. It, like every other question of law or fact, is the subject of review. The right to review this question alone, gives the right of appeal. The appellate court must act upon it and decide it, and its decision should be entered of record in that court. If the decision is against the jurisdiction of the courts—and if of one, of course of both courts—the action must be dismissed by force of that judgment, but the judgment should be entered, and the record retained in the appellate court. * * * Now, it appears that the judgment from which the appeal in this case was taken, was, in form and color, entirely regular. By the terms of the preceding section, an appeal lies from it. The only plausible ground for denial that an appeal lies from it is that, for the want of jurisdiction in the court which rendered it, it is no judgment. It is of course true that, for many purposes, it is a nullity. While it yet stands unreversed, it is a brutum fulmen, which neither binds nor bars any one. Whether it is reviewable, brings us back to the question whether want of jurisdiction...