Piper v. Town of Meredith
| Decision Date | 20 March 1969 |
| Docket Number | No. 5885,5885 |
| Citation | 251 A.2d 328,109 N.H. 328 |
| Parties | Nelson B. PIPER et al. v. TOWN OF MEREDITH. |
| Court | New Hampshire Supreme Court |
Wescott, Millham & Dyer, Laconia (Rodney N. Dyer, Laconia, orally), for plaintiffs.
John H. Ramsey, Meredith, for defendant, filed no brief.
Nighswander, Lord & Martin and David J. Killkelley, Laconia, for Charles J. Cataldo et al., as maicus curiae.
This is a petition for an injunction praying that the town of Meredith be temporarily and permanently enjoined from conducting a special town meeting for the purpose of enacting a proposed ordinance. The hearing on the temporary injunction was held on October 8, 1968. Following the hearing and on the same day the Trial Court (Loughlin, J.) made the following order:
The defendant excepted to the ruling of the Trial Court that 'any action taken by the petitionee is violative of the requirements of Chapter 31, Sections 60-66, and is not valid under the general police power.' No findings of fact or rulings of law were made and defendant's exception was reserved and transferred by the Trial Court.
The proposed ordinance recited in the preamble that it was pursuant to the authority conferred by RSA 31:60 and provided that no building should be erected in Meredith exceeding five stories or seventy-five feet in height, nor within fifty feet of any other building and if within one hundred feet of any lake not more than three stories or forty-five feet in height.
The defendant's exception to the ruling of the Trial Court must be sustained. The Superior Court has no jurisdiction to give advisory opinions. The ruling that if the ordinance were enacted it would be invalid was not within the jurisdiction of the Superior Court nor was it a necessary part of the denial of the temporary injunction. The Supreme Court is limited by the 74th Article of our Constitution in giving advisory opinions and in giving them the justices act not as a court but as the constitutional advisors of the body requiring their opinion. Opinion of the Justices, 73 N.H. 625, 626, 63 A. 505. The bodies authorized to thus obtain opinions are limited by Article 74 to the branches of the Legislature...
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Piper v. Meredith
...1969, that the above ruling constituted an advisory opinion which is not within the jurisdiction of the Superior Court. Piper v. Meredith, 109 N.H. 328, 330, 251 A.2d 328. The master found that 'On October 9, 1968, the Special Town Meeting was held. Town counsel, Judge John Ramsey, attempte......
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Duncan v. State
...the governor and council." N.H. CONST. pt. II, art. 74 ; see In re School–Law Manual, 63 N.H. at 576–77, 4 A. 878 ; Piper v. Meredith, 109 N.H. 328, 330, 251 A.2d 328 (1969) ("The bodies authorized to ... obtain [advisory] opinions are limited by [Part II,] Article 74 [ ] to the branches of......
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Central Motors Corp. v. City of Pepper Pike
...v. Board of Adjustment (1973), 123 N.J.Super. 162, 302 A.2d 136.(c) Clear and affirmative evidence was the test in Piper v. Meredith (1970), 109 N.H. 328, 251 A.2d 328; LaSalle Nat. Bank v. Western Springs (1974), 22 Ill.App.3d 533, 317 N.E.2d 646.(d) Evidence sufficient to take the matter ......
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PI Enterprises, Inc. v. Cataldo, 71-1375.
...Court on the grounds that it was advisory and the superior court lacked jurisdiction to render advisory opinions. Piper v. Meredith, 109 N.H. 328, 251 A.2d 328 (1969). 3 Piper, along with one Myles I. Israel, is said to wholly own and control Nelmy Leasing and P I 4 The record of the state ......