McCrory Stores Corp. v. S. M. Braunstein, Inc.

• Decision Date: 19 October 1926
• Citation: 134 A. 752
• Parties: McCRORY STORES CORPORATION v. S. M. BRAUNSTEIN, Inc.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

134 A. 752

McCRORY STORES CORPORATION

v. S. M. BRAUNSTEIN, Inc.

Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey.

Oct. 19, 1926.

Kalisch, J., dissenting.

Appeal from Supreme Court.

Proceeding under the Declaratory Judgments Act by the McCrory Stores Corporation against S. M. Braunstein, Inc. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Cole & Cole, of Atlantic City, for appellant.

Bourgeois & Coulomb, of Atlantic City, for respondent.

GUMMERE, C. J. This is a proceeding instituted in the Supreme Court, under the provisions of a statute passed in 1924, entitled "An act concerning declaratory judgments and decrees" (P. L. 312), and referred by that tribunal to the circuit court of Atlantic county for hearing and determination. Its purpose is to have judicially declared the true construction of a provision in a lease under which the McCrory Stores Corporation is occupying a store in Atlantic City belonging to the Braunstein Company. The lease is for a term of 20 years, running from October, 1915, to October, 1935. The rental was fixed at $15,000 per year, plus an additional thus provided in the portion of the lease which the court is asked to construe:

"And the said party of the second part [that is, the tenant] hereby covenants and agrees that it will pay all the increase in taxes on and after October 27, 1920, which said increase in taxes shall be considered as so much rent due and payable within 30 days after the same becomes due and payable to the city of Atlantic City."

It appears that the taxes assessed upon this property for the year 1920 were considerably in excess of those assessed upon it for the year 1919, and the contention of the lessor is that, by the provision of the lease which has been recited, all increases over the assessment of 1919 are to be paid by the lessee. The lessee, on the other hand, contends that it is an in crease over the assessment of 1920 that it is obligated to pay. The circuit court considered that the true construction of this provision of the lease was that contended for by the tenant, and, upon so advising the Supreme Court, a declaratory judgment was there entered in accordance with that view. From this judgment the lessor has appealed.

The appellant, when the case was moved in the court below, challenged its jurisdiction to determine the subject-matter involved in the proceeding, upon the ground that, by force of article 6, § 1, of our Constitution, only "judicial powers" could be vested in our courts by legislative enactment; that the statute under which the proceeding was instituted violates this constitutional provision for the reason that it attempts to impose upon our courts the performance of acts nonjudicial in character, by conferring upon them power to make binding declarations of rights as to matters which are not presently involved in any pending litigation, and which declarations, when made are unenforceable by execution or other final process, and, are therefore in no sense judicial judgments. This contention having been resolved against the appellant by the circuit court, it is now urged before us as a reason for reversing the so-called judgment now under review.

The Declaratory Judgment Act, by its first and second sections, confers upon our courts of record, within their respective jurisdictions, power to declare rights, status, or other legal relations, although no further relief is or could be claimed, and empowers those courts, among other things, to determine any question of construction or validity arising under a deed, will, or written contract, and declare the rights, statute, or other legal relations thereunder of the parties thereto. Such declarations, by the express language of the statute, are given the force and effect of final judgments or decrees. It is true that they are not enforceable by execution or other final process, but relief, based thereon, may be granted, whenever necessary or proper, on application to a court having jurisdiction to grant such relief. Section 8.

Declaratory judment statutes similar to, if not identical with, that now under consideration have been enacted by the Legislature of many of our sister states, and have been the subject of much discussion by the courts of several of those states in considering the question whether challenges to the validity of such legislation, similar in essence to that interposed by counsel for the defendant, rest upon a sound legal basis. The great majority of those courts have held that the powers conferred upon judicial tribunals by these statutes, and the duties imposed upon them in the exercise of those powers, were not violative of constitutional principles. State v. Grove, 109 Kan. 619, 201 P. 82, 19 A. L. R. 1116; Board of Education v. Van Zandt, 234 N. Y. 644, 138 N. E. 481; Blakeslee v. AVilson, 190 Cal. 479. 213 P. 493; Braman v. Babcock, 98 Conn. 549, 120 A. 150; In re Petition of Kariker, 284 Pa. 455. 131 A. 265; Miller v. Miller, 149 Tenn. 463, 261 S. W. 965.

The reasoning contained in the opinions upon which this conclusion is rested is to us convincing of the soundness of that conclusion. To appropriate that reasoning in extenso as...