Lord v. Gifford

• Decision Date: 11 November 1901
• Citation: 50 A. 903,67 N.J.L. 193
• Parties: LORD v. GIFFORD et al.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

50 A. 903

67 N.J.L. 193

LORD

v. GIFFORD et al.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Nov. 11, 1901.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Certiorari to court of common pleas, Monmouth county.

Certiorari by the state, on the prosecution of George R. Lord, executor, against William Gifford and others, to review the return laying out a public road. Proceedings affirmed.

Argued June term, 1901, before GUMMERE and HENDRICKSON, JJ.

Wesley B. Stout and R. Ten Broeck Stout, for prosecutor.

Samuel A. Patterson, for defendants.

HENDRICKSON, J. This writ brings up from the Monmouth pleas the proceedings and return of surveyors of the highways laying out a public road in the township of Neptune, in the county of. Monmouth. One of the reasons urged for setting aside the return is because the surveyors held their meeting and signed their return, pursuant to appointment by the court, on the 22d day of February, 1900, which, by statute, is made a legal holiday. While this fact appears from the record, we do not think the proceedings are thereby rendered invalid. The statute on the subject of legal holidays (Gen. St. p. 1941, par. 6) enacts that the days and half days therein named "shall, for all purposes whatever as regards the presentment for payment or acceptance and protest when dishonored, of bills of exchange, bank checks' and promissory notes, be treated and considered as the first day of the week, commonly called Sunday, and as public holidays or half holidays." It further enacts that they shall also be so considered "for all purposes whatever as regards the transaction of business in the public offices of this state or counties of this state," etc. From this it would seem to be implied that it was not the purpose of the legislature to render illegal the transaction of any business, public or private, on legal holidays other than that thus specially proscribed. Mr. Justice Magie, after a very careful examination of this subject in Glenn v. Eddy, 51 N. J. Law, 255, 17 Atl. 145, 14 Am. St. Rep. 684, so construed the act with regard to legal holidays then existing (Supp. Revision, 361), which differed from the present act, in that it included among the things prohibited on a legal holiday the holding of, courts and the compelling of any person to labor upon such days. He said: "When the statute declares them to be legal holidays, it does not permit a reference to the legal status of Sunday to discover its meaning; for it proceeds to interpret the phrase, so far as it is prohibitory, by an express enactment what shall not be done...