City of Newark v. Mt. Pleasant Cemetery Co.

• Decision Date: 29 November 1895
• Parties: CITY OF NEWARK v. MT. PLEASANT CEMETERY CO.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

33 A. 396

58 N.J.L. 168

CITY OF NEWARK

v. MT. PLEASANT CEMETERY CO.

Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey.

Nov. 29, 1895.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Error to supreme court.

By the judgment brought here by this writ, the supreme court vacated an assessment imposed by the city of Newark on lands of the Mt. Pleasant Cemetery Company for the expense of repaving Belleville avenue. No opinion was rendered in that court, but the following memorandum was filed: "The relator is incorporated under a special act, January 24, 1844. A supplement, February 9, 1861, exempts it from taxes and assessments until board of chosen freeholders otherwise directs. That exemption held good in 52 N. J. Law, 539, 20 Atl. 832. June 19, 1891, the freeholders resolved that thereafter the said association should be subject to taxes and assessments. The assessment for repaving now certified was subsequently imposed. The act of 1851, which is a general act for the incorporation of cemetery companies, exempts cemetery associations formed under that act from taxes and assessments. See, also, Supp. Laws 1868, p. 832. Under this act the relator is not within the exempting clause, because it is not incorporated under the act of 1851, but by a special charter. In the revision of the laws the language of this exempting clause in the cemetery act was changed, and it now provides that cemetery associations formed under this act, 'or otherwise incorporated,' shall be exempt. Revision, p. 102, par. 8. This clearly takes in the relator, and entitles it to exemption from this assessment. Foster Home Case, 35 N. J. Law, 167." Affirmed.

Sherrerd Depue, for plaintiff in error.

Henry Young, for defendant in error.

MAGIE, J. (after stating the facts). It is obvious that the judgment of the supreme court has proceeded upon the ground that the eighth section of the "act to authorize the incorporation of rural cemetery associations and regulate cemeteries," approved April 9, 1875 (Revision, p. 100), which enacts that "the cemetery lands and property of any association formed pursuant to this act or otherwise incorporated" shall be exempt from all public taxes, rates, and assessments, applies to the lands and property of the Mt. Pleasant Cemetery Company, and exempts them from such an assessment as was the subject of consideration and contest. That company had been incorporated by a special act passed January 24, 1844 (Laws 1844, p. 19), which enacted that the property of the incorporation thus created should not be subject to any assessment, taxes, or fines, unless otherwise directed by the board of chosen freeholders of the county of Essex. This provision was in 1890 held by this court to be obligatory and valid. Mt. Pleasant Cemetery Co. v. City of Newark, 52 N. J. Law, 539, 20 Atl. 832. The case shows that on June 19, 1891, the board of chosen freeholders of Essex county passed a resolution that the lands and property of the cemetery company should thereafter be subject to all taxes and assessments imposed thereon by virtue of the laws of this state. The assessment which was vacated by the supreme court was confirmed December 31, 1892. It has not been contended here that the conclusion of the supreme court could be pronounced erroneous if the act of April 9, 1875, possesses validity and remains in force. The contention is that the act in question either lacks constitutional validity, or has been repealed so far as it affects cemetery associations incorporated under special acts, and that the assessment in question, having been imposed after the passage of the resolution of the board of chosen freeholders, was not within the exemption of the act creating the Mt. Pleasant Cemetery Company.

It is first argued that the title of the act of April 9, 1875, is not in conformity to the constitutional requirement that, "to avoid improper influences which may result from intermixing in one and the same act such things as have no proper relation to each other, every law shall embrace but one object and that shall be expressed in the title." Const, art 4, § 7, par. 4. It is insisted that the law in question fails to accord with this provision of the constitution, first, because it embraces two objects. The constitution itself discloses the reason for the restriction on legislation contained in the provision in question. It is because of the influences which might result from the inclusion in one act of matters not properly related to each other that it requires every law to embrace but one object. The evil intended to be guarded against was not the inclusion in one act of more than a single matter, but the inclusion therein of matters not properly related among themselves. So, by its obvious construction, this constitutional provision justifies and permits legislation by one statute, looking toward a single general object, although it contains and enacts various and multiform matters, if those matters are properly related to each other, and tend to effectuate the general object. This is the view of the provision in question taken in this court. Payne v. Mahon, 44 N. J. Law, 213. The same construction has been repeatedly given it in the supreme court and in the court of chancery. The cases will be found collected in the able opinion of the learned chancellor in Stockton v. Railroad Co., 50 N. J. Eq. 52, 24 Atl. 904. It results that, when a court is called on to determine whether a statute conforms to this requirement of the constitution, the first duty is to scrutinize its provisions to see if they disclose the general object of the legislation. Then, if that object be one, and the various provisions of the statute tend to carry it out, and are not incongruous or improperly related, this requirement will have been complied with. Turning to the act of April 9, 1875, I find in its provisions a clear and definite general object, viz. the establishment and maintenance of cemeteries for the burial of the dead. Moreover, I find that its provisions, though various, all tend to promote that object, and are not improperly related to each other. Thus, it first authorizes the formation of associations to take, hold, and use land for cemetery purposes, and regulates the associations thus to be formed. The tendency of legislation had for many years been towards the creation of corporations by general rather than by special laws. On the preceding day the legislature had submitted to the people the amendment to the constitution, afterwards adopted, which prohibits the grant of corporate powers otherwise than by general laws. But while thus authorizing the acquisition of new corporate powers to effectuate the general object of the act, it was within legislative knowledge that cemeteries for the burial of the dead had previously been established by corporations created by special laws or the general law of 1851, hereafter mentioned, and it was obvious that the cemeteries thus established, and...