de Hart v. Atl. City

• Decision Date: 20 June 1899
• Citation: 43 A. 742,63 N.J.L. 223
• Parties: DE HART v. ATLANTIC CITY et al.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

43 A. 742

63 N.J.L. 223

DE HART

v. ATLANTIC CITY et al.

Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey.

June 20, 1899.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Error to supreme court.

Certiorari by Charles U. De Hart against Atlantic City and others. Judgment for defendants (41 Atl. 687), and plaintiff brings error. Reversed.

C. L. Cole, for plaintiff in error.

A. B.

Endicott, for defendants in error.

McGILL, C. This litigation brings in question the constitutionality of part of an enactment entitled "A supplement to an act entitled 'An act constituting district courts in certain cities of this state,' approved March ninth, one thousand eight hundred and seventy-seven," approved February 17, 1898. The act, among other things, purports to amend the second section of the act to which it is intended to be a supplement. It re-enacts the entire section, which reads: "That one district court shall be established in accordance with this act in every city of this state of over twenty thousand inhabitants; but cities of one hundred thousand inhabitants, or over, shall be entitled to two district courts: provided, always, that no more than two district courts shall at any time be established in any city of this state" (P. L. 1898, p. 15); and adds to it, after changing the period at its end to a semicolon, this language: "And one district court shall be established in every city of this state having twenty thousand inhabitants or less, which shall by resolution of city council adopt this act within three months from the date of the passage thereof" (Id.). On the 21st of February, 1898, the city council of Atlantic City passed a resolution intended to adopt the act in question, and establish in that city a district court. The resolution was taken to the supreme court by certiorari, where the statute in question was attacked as unconstitutional upon several grounds, and, among them, upon the insistence that the limitation of time within which the act might be adopted by a city renders it special, and obnoxious to the interdict of the constitution against the regulation of the internal affairs of towns by special enactment.

The apparent purpose of the legislation is to authorize the establishment of district courts in such cities, having a population of 20,000 inhabitants or less, as shall, by resolution of their city council, adopt the enactment within three months. As the expense of district courts by law falls upon the cities in which they are located, the supreme court properly held that a law instituting such courts must be general. It is observed that the provision of the statute complained of is made applicable to a limited class,—cities having 20,000 or less inhabitants adopting the enactment within three months. After the expiration of the three months, the law remains, but applicable only to those cities of the class indicated that have adopted it. Its benefit is denied to then existing cities whose necessity may, at any time after the three months, have demanded, or may hereafter demand, a district court, and as well to all cities that may have come Into being after the expiration of the three-months limitation, or may hereafter come into being. The effect of the limitation is a restriction of the class to which the law may be applied. It has not been suggested, and it is not perceived, that the restriction has any reasonable relation to the purpose of the enactment. On the contrary, it is impossible to consider the restrictive clause without feeling that it is illusive. To sustain it as a proper basis of classification in the present case would be to overthrow the...