Michaelson v. Wall Tp.

• Decision Date: 07 November 1918
• Citation: 108 A. 145
• Parties: MICHAELSON v. WALL TP. COOPER v. FRELINGHUYSEN TP. ROBSON v. BLAIRSTOWN TP.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

108 A. 145

MICHAELSON

v. WALL TP.

COOPER

v. FRELINGHUYSEN TP.

ROBSON

v. BLAIRSTOWN TP.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Nov. 7, 1918.

Writs of certiorari prosecuted by Harry Michaelson against the Township of Wall, by Watson C. Cooper against the Township of Frelinghuysen, and by William Robson against the Township of Blairstown, to determine the legality of local option elections. Elections in the Townships of Wall and Frelinghuysen invalidated and set aside; writ dismissed in the third case.

Argued June term, 1918, before PARKER and MINTURN, JJ.

Charles E. Cook, of Asbury Park, and Robert H. McCarter, of Newark, for prosecutor Michaelson.

Levi H. Morris, of Newton, for prosecutor Cooper.

William A. Dolan, of Newton, for prosecutor Robson.

Harry Heher, of Trenton, amicus curiae.

George S. Hobart, of Jersey City, Benjamin F. Jones, of Newark, and Egbert Rosecrans, of Blairstown, for respondents.

PARKER, J. These three writs of certiorari bring up for examination and adjudication special elections held in the several townships named, and the proceedings leading up thereto, under and by virtue of chapter 2 of the Laws of 1918 (Pamph. L. p. 14) known as the Local Option Liquor Law. Attack is made both on the validity of the act itself and on the regularity of the procedure pursued in holding the elections in question.

Objection to the constitutionality of the act is made upon several grounds. The first of these to be noticed is that the title of the act is broader than its body, and that this invalidates it under the constitutional provision, requiring that every law shall have but one object, and that shall be expressed in its title.

The title of the act is as follows:

"An act to prohibit the sale, or offer, or exposure for sale, or furnishing or otherwise dealing in intoxicating liquor as a beverage and the granting of licenses therefor in any town, township, village, borough, city or other municipality (not a county) in this state where the legal voters thereof shall decide by a majority vote in favor of such prohibition or the continuance thereof."

The argument made is that this title is equivalent to a statement that the act is to apply in all municipalities of the various classes named, but that in the body of the act at section 19 there is a saving clause providing that nothing in the act shall affect, amend, or repeal any other law which now prohibits within the limits of any municipality, or any portion thereof, either the sale, or offer, or the exposure for sale, or furnishing or otherwise dealing in intoxicating liquor, or the keeping of a place where intoxicating liquor is sold, furnished, or otherwise dealt in (page 30). And it is further argued that this exception which is apparently intended to prevent the act taking effect in such places, for example, as Asbury Park, vitiates the whole act because the title fails to indicate that certain municipalities forming a distinct class are to be excepted; and the case of Beverly v. Wain, 57 N. J. Law, 143, 30 Atl. 545, is relied on. That case has been somewhat misunderstood, and seems to have required some later explanation on the part of the Court of Errors and Appeals, which in the later decision of Johnson v. Asbury Park, 60 N. J. Law, 428, 39 Atl. 693, pointed out on page 431 that the act held bad in Beverly v. Wain was so held on the sole ground that its title was manifestly false and deceptive in indicating that legislation was intended with regard to all cities in the state, whereas the body of the act dealt with only cities of the third class, and the court went on to say:

"It was not held nor was it intended to hold that an act legislating respecting some objects fairly included within the title will be invalidated because it does not include all such objects except where the title, expressly or by necessary implication, evinces an intent to legislate as to all of them."

We consider that the title in this respect is sufficient.

Secondly, it is urged that the title is misleading because it indicates an intention to prohibit the sale, etc., of intoxicating liquor when the intention is really to regulate such sale. The argument rests on the ground that, because the act is made by section 29 inapplicable to any manufacturer of intoxicating liquor whose manufactory is located in a municipality wherein the sale of intoxicating liquor as a beverage is prohibited so far as respects his right to sell, deal, or furnish his product in wholesale quantities to any person or persons outside the limits of said municipality, this feature makes it properly an act to regulate the sale, and not an act to prohibit the same. But we fail to see the substantial merit of the point. Taken generally, the act is unquestionably an act to prohibit the sale or offer or exposure for sale or furnishing or otherwise dealing in intoxicating liquor as a beverage in any of the municipalities classified in the act, and it seems to be a far cry to say that it is turned into a mere regulative act because the rights of parties manufacturing liquor within those municipalities, but selling, dealing, or furnishing their product in wholesale quantities to persons outside the limits, are preserved by way of this saving clause. We think there is nothing in this objection.

The next point urged against the constitutionality of the act is that it is a special act regulating the internal affairs of towns and counties because of the exception, already adverted to and occurring in section 19, of municipalities where prohibition is already in force. To this we think there are two answers. The first answer is that so far as appears there are no towns where prohibition is in force, except under acts relating to churches, or camp meetings, or state institutions and the adjoining territory. The statutes cited are: Pamph. L. 1880, p. 392, which relates to camp meetings; Pamph. L. 1896, p. 53, also relating to camp meetings; Comp. Stat. p. 4961, § 19, relating to the epileptic village; and Comp. Stat. p. 3190, § 59, relating to the state asylum for the insane. As respects all these, the case of Sexton v. Asbury Park, 76 N. J. Law, 102, 69 Atl. 470, seems to be adequate authority for saying that they are a legitimate class of municipalities or territory for constitutional purposes. There is one other act cited (Pamph. L. 1907, pp. 188, 246; Comp. Stat, p. 1438), which is a charter act concerning cities of the second class under 20,000 inhabitants, but it is not made to appear that any city has been organized thereunder, and, if not, the exception in section 19 of the act under consideration does not apply.

The second answer is that the saving clause in section 19 is not a necessary part of the legislative scheme laid down in the act, and may legitimately be disregarded if necessary to save its constitutional validity; and that this is clearly within the intention of the Legislature is shown by section 31, which provides that—

"If any provision or provisions of this act shall be held, for any reason to be unconstitutional or invalid, it shall not affect or impair the validity of the other provisions of this act, or any of them."

The third attack upon the constitutionality of the act is that it is in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment of the federal Constitution, and this on four grounds:

(a) That there is a discrimination in section 24 between licenses issued before and licenses issued after the passage of the act with respect to the time for which such licenses shall respectively continue after the adoption of the law. We think there is nothing in this; and that, on the contrary, a failure to make the distinction might have jeoparized the validity of the act on the very ground now urged; for licensees who. were licensed before the act was passed stand in a much more meritorious position than those licensed after the adoption of the act with knowledge of its provisions and of the liability of having their licenses taken away thereunder. Such licensees accepted their licenses with full notice of the situation, and necessarily more or less at their peril.

(b) In providing a summary review of the proceedings on the application of a voter only in cases when the governing body of a municipality determine that the petition for a referendum election is insufficient, and not in cases wherein the determination is to the contrary. As to this, it is sufficient to say that no such case is before us, and that this is likewise a feature of the act which could be safely exscinded if unconstitutional, without impairment of the legislative scheme.

(c) In that the right of petitioning for an election is limited to those persons that voted at the last election in the municipality. This is a mere question of putting the machinery of the statute in motion and of selecting a class of citizens who should appropriately be vested with that right. Counsel do not seem to suggest any better method, whether the right of signing the petition should be conferred upon all citizens, whether sane or insane, infants or what not. If the act had said freeholders instead of those voting at the last election, there could be no doubt of the propriety of designating that class, and we fail entirely to see any impropriety in fixing upon the voters of a former election as petitioners. We think that, in fact, this is the usual...