People ex rel. Yost v. Becker

• Decision Date: 17 October 1911
• Citation: 203 N.Y. 201,96 N.E. 381
• Parties: PEOPLE ex rel. HON YOST v. BECKER, Sheriff.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

203 N.Y. 201

96 N.E. 381

PEOPLE ex rel. HON YOST

v.BECKER, Sheriff.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Oct. 17, 1911.

Appeal from Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Fourth Department.

Certiorari by the People, on the relation of Nicholas Hon Yost, directed against Daniel T. Becker, Sheriff of the County of Oneida, commanding him to certify the cause of the imprisonment of relator. From an order of the Appellate Division (142 App. Div. 929,127 N. Y. Supp. 1139), affirming an order of the special Term dismissing the writ, plaintiff appeals. Order reversed.J. T. Durham, for appellant.

Edwin J. Brown, for respondent.

COLLIN, J.

In July, 1910, the relator was imprisoned in the jail of Oneida county under a commitment issued by ‘Thomas P. Bryant, Police Justice of the Area or Territory of Sylvan Beach, N. Y.,’ as a Court of Special Sessions of the town of Vienna, Oneida county. The respondent by his return to the writ and arguments, contends that the commitment defends the imprisonment. The relator argues that the area or territory of Sylvan Beach was incorporated as a village in violation of the section of the Constitution of the state which prohibits the Legislature from passing private or local bills incorporating villages, and, as a corollary, that the Court of Special Sessions or Police Court and the office of police justice within the area or territory of Sylvan Beach, N. Y., were nonexistent, and the commitmemt was void.

[1] The character of the area or territory of Sylvan Beach in July, 1910, was fixed by chapter 812 of the Laws of 1896 and chapter 361 of the Laws of 1901. The first act named was entitled ‘An act to revise, amend and consolidate the several acts relating to the area or territory known as Sylvan Beach, in the town of Vienna, county of Oneida, and to repeal certain acts and parts of acts.’ The second act named was entitled ‘An act to amend, revise and consolidate chapter eight hundred and twleve of the laws of eighteen hundred and ninety-six, entitled ‘An act to revise, amend and consolidate the several acts relating to the area or territory known as Sylvan Beach, in the town of Vienna, county of Oneida, and to repeal certain acts and parts of acts.’' In aid of clearness and brevity, we will here speak of them as a single act. The act provides: It shall affect all that part of the town of Vienna known as Sylvan Beach, which it particularly describes. Section 1. On the Tuesday succeeding the first Monday in August in each year the owners of real property within the said area or territory particularly described, as appearing upon the assessment rolls of said territory for the then current year and who are qualified to vote at town meetings or city elections in the town or city in which they respectively reside, and all persons who actually reside within such area or territory and are qualified to vote at town meetings in the town of Vienna, shall hold a meeting for the election of officers of said territory, who shall have the powers conferred by the act. Section 2. The officers of said territory of Sylvan Beach shall be a president, four trustees, a clerk, a treasurer, an assessor, a collector, a street commissioner, a chief of the fire department, a police justice, a chief of police and the necessary patrolmen and special police, whose respective qualifications and terms of office and official duties and powers are prescribed. The president and trustees shall constitute the board of trustees for said area or territory. Section 3. Section 4 enumerates in 18 subdivisions the powers of the trustees. They may, for said area or territory, construct a drainage and sewage system, establish sanitary, police, and fire regulations, prevent vice and immorality, preserve order and control public entertainments, build station houses and lockups, organize and maintain a fire department, exercise the same power as village boards of health, enact such regulations as they may deem proper from time to time and enforce them with penalties, violations of which shall be misdemeanors, and appoint officers other than those named in the act, or committees, deemed necessary or useful in carrying out the act or for the good government and maintenance of the government of the area or territory. Policemen for such territory shall have the powers and duties of constables in towns and peace officers. Section 16 . It provides for the assessment of the persons and property within the said territory and the voting, levying and collection of the taxes to defray the expenses authorized by the act. Sections 8, 9, 10, 17, 19, 20. The territory is constituted a separate highway district, wherein the trustees have all the powers and shall perform all the duties of commissioners of highways in towns. Section 11. Public parks and a park commissioner (section 14), and an officered and equipped fire department are authorized. Section 15. It enacts that there shall be elected within and for said territory a police justice who shall have the power and jurisdiction in all cases of the violation of the regulations and ordinances of said territory of Sylvan Beach, and in all criminal cases of police justices under the village laws of the state, or which may be thereafter conferred by said laws on police justices, and shall be subject to the same duties and liabilities as police justices in villages and in all other respects be governed by said village laws conferring the powers and rights and defining the duties and liabilities of justices in villages. In case of the absence or inability of said police justice to act in his official capacity, any justice of the peace of the towns of Vienna or Verona shall have authority to act in his place. Section 13. The said territory is subject to actions to enforce any claim or demand against it and process therein shall be served on the president of the board of trustees or clerk. Section 22. The foregoing statement, although imperfect, sets forth the salient and characterizing effects of the legislation. The antecedent legislative acts relating to this area or territory are chapter 308 of the Laws of 1887 and chapter 194 of the Laws of 1888. Those subsequent are chapter 292 of the Laws of 1906 and chapter 80 of the Laws of 1910. Thomas P. Bryant was elected, in accordance with the provisions of the statute, the police justice of the area or territory of Sylvan Beach, N. Y., and his term had not in July, 1910, expired .

The statutes were inhibited by the Constitution of the state. The powers they purported to confer upon the area or territory related to health, order, good government, police and fire protection, highways, public grounds, the expending of money for public purposes, and the levying and collecting of taxes within it. It was invested with perpetuity of existence and the right to acquire, hold, and dispose of property. It was given a governing body with the power of appointing officers and agents, the power to enact regulations and ordinances, enforce them, and punish for their infractions. It held its powers and rights for public purposes and for the peculiar benefit of its inhabitants and the owners of real property within it. It was a body politic and corporate, and, as such, the local recipient of administrative and judicial functions to be used as a part of the state government of the public good, by the exercise of which it became a participant in the government of the state. MacMullen v. City of Middletown, 187 N. Y. 37, 79 N. E. 863,11 L. R. A. (N. S.) 391;Barnes v. District of Columbia, 91 U. S. 540, 23 L. Ed. 440;People ex rel. Devery v. Coler, 173 N. Y. 103,65 N. E. 965;Wells v. Town of Salina, 119 N. Y. 280, 23 N. E. 870,7 L. R. A. 759. It was a legal municipal corporation unless the people of the state had by their supreme and paramount law restrained the Legislature from instituting it.

[2] The Legislature may exercise the whole legislative power of the people except as the Constitution expressly or by implication frobids. The people of the state in and by means of the Constitution of 1777 constructed in broad and general language the framework of the system or the machinery through the operation of which ...