Bowman v. Bd. of Chosen Freeholders of Essex County
| Decision Date | 19 November 1906 |
| Citation | 64 A. 1010,73 N.J.L. 543 |
| Parties | BOWMAN v. BOARD OF CHOSEN FREEHOLDERS OF ESSEX COUNTY. |
| Court | New Jersey Supreme Court |
Error to Supreme Court
Certiorari by Samuel H. Bowman against the board of chosen freeholders of the county of Essex. From a judgment of dismissal, plaintiff brings error. Affirmed.
Robert H. McCarter, for plaintiff in error. Joseph L. Munn, for defendant in error.
This writ of error brings up a judgment of the Supreme Court dismissing a certiorari which was sued out to review the legality of an assessment imposed by the board of freeholders of Essex county upon lands of Bowman, for benefits resulting from the widening of Bloomfield avenue, upon which the lands abut. The work of widening the avenue, and the laying of the assessment, were done by the board in the exercise of powers which were originally conferred by the Legislature upon the Essex public road board by the act of March 31, 1869 (P. L. p. 957), which created that body.
The question presented by this writ for determination is whether subsequent legislation by which the powers, rights, and duties originally vested in the Essex public road board were transferred to the board of chosen freeholders of the county is valid. The argument presented on behalf of the prosecutor rests upon the assumption that this transference was accomplished by force of the act of April 24, 1894 (P. L. 1894, p. 128), entitled, "An act to abolish public road boards in counties of this state and to transfer to and vest in the boards of chosen freeholders in and for the counties in which such public road boards may now exist, all the powers, rights and property now vested in and belonging to such public road boards" (Gen. St. p. 2864), and that the act is unconstitutional. That statute provides that, from and after the first Tuesday of May, 1894, the board of chosen freeholders in and for any county in this state in which any county public road board having charge of public roads may now exist shall be vested with, possess, and be subject to all the powers, rights, authority, and duties which are now by law vested in, or imposed upon, such public road board; and that all county public road boards having charge of public roads shall, on that day, be and they are thereby declared to be, abolished, and all powers vested in them, and all property, books, papers, rights, leases, titles, and assessment liens, belonging to, or vested in, such boards, shall be transferred to, and vested in, and become the property of, the board of chosen freeholders in and for the county in which any such public road board then existed. The Essex public road board was sui generis, clothed with powers the like of which were not conferred upon any other road board of the state, and counsel insists that, by transferring those powers to the board of freeholders of Essex county, the Legislature has differentiated that board from every other board of freeholders in the state; that the statute is, to this extent, special in its operation, and therefore obnoxious to that provision of the Constitution which inhibits the passing of special laws regulating the internal affairs of counties. If the effect of this statute has been to transfer the powers of the Essex public road board to the county board of freeholders, as the prosecutor contends, and as appears to have been its purpose, and this court was now called upon for the first time to determine the constitutionality of such legislation, it may be conceded that the question presented would be one of doubt and difficulty. But this is not the situation, for, at the time of the passing of the act of 1894, the transfer of those powers had already been accomplished (so far as the Legislature had authority to make it) by an act passed February 10, 1881 (P. L. 1881, p. 19), entitled, "An act to reduce the expenses of public road boards, and to place them under the...
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...establishing that law. Graves v. State, 45 N. J.Law 203; State v. Taylor, 68 N.J.Law 276, 279, 53 A. 392; Bowman v. Freeholders of Essex, 73 N.J.Law 543, 547, 64 A. 1010; Jersey City v. Blume, 101 N.J.Law 93, 95, 127 A. 214. That it was unaware of those cases is inconceivable. That it inten......
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