Raymond v. Twp. Council of Teaneck

• Decision Date: 12 April 1937
• Docket Number: Nos. 37, 38.,s. 37, 38.
• Citation: 191 A. 480
• Parties: RAYMOND v. TOWNSHIP COUNCIL OF TEANECK et al.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

191 A. 480

RAYMOND

v. TOWNSHIP COUNCIL OF TEANECK et al.

Nos. 37, 38.

Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey.

April 12, 1937.

Appeal from Supreme Court.

Certiorari proceeding by Arthur R. Raymond against the Township Council of Teaneck, and others, to review a resolution of the Township of Teaneck, purporting to remove the prosecutor from his office as assessor of the township. From a judgment of the Supreme Court (186 A. 62, 14 N.J.Misc. 487), affirming the resolution, the prosecutor appeals.

Affirmed.

Major, Back & Carlsen, of Hackensack, and Ellenstein & O'Brien, of Newark (James A. Major, of Hackensack, and James F. X. O'Brien, of Newark, of counsel), for appellant. Donald M. Waesche, of Hackensack, for respondents.

HEHER, Justice.

There was no preamble to the statute under review, chapter 277 of the Laws of 1935, Pamph. L. p. 886 (N.J.St.Annual 1935, §§ *136— 1229B(4), *136—1229B(5). What is so described in the opinion of the Supreme Court was merely the introducer's customary explanatory statement; and it is therefore not to be considered an index of the legislative intent in judicial exposition of the enactment.

Yet the statute is nevertheless patently violative of article 4, section 7, paragraph 11, of the State Constitution, inhibiting, private, local, or special legislative acts designed to regulate the internal affairs of municipalities. The classification made therein imparts to this legislative measure the attributes of special legislation in relation to the domestic affairs of local governments.

Article 1, section 19, of the Constitution gives recognition to the common-law division of municipalities into counties, cities, boroughs, towns, townships, and villages. And there resides in the lawmaking body the conceded power to further classify the several municipalities for legislative purposes. It is within the competency of the Legislature to classify objects of legislation; and in the exercise of this power it possesses a large measure of discretion. But the classification, to have the virtue of constitutional generality, must rest upon distinctions that are substantial and not merely illusory. The test is whether the statutory class has a logical and reasonable basis, free from artificiality and arbitrariness, embracing all and omitting none naturally falling into that category. Is it legislation of such a character as is equally appropriate to all forming the statutory class, and is that class embracive of all in like situation and circumstances, and therefore natural members of the class so created? If, viewed in the light of the legislative design, the necessity or propriety of the classification reasonably appears, it is not within the constitutional interdict. Burlington v. Pennsylvania R. R. Co., 104 N.J.Law, 649, 142 A. 23; Attorney General v. McKelvey, 78 N.J.Law, 621, 623, 77 A. 94; Boorum v. Connelly, 66 N.J.Law, 197, 48 A. 955, 88 Am.St.Rep. 469; Lewis v. Jersey City, 66 N.J.Law, 582, 50 A. 346, 347; Wanser v. Hoos, 60 N.J.Law, 482, 38 A. 449, 64 Am. St.Rep. 600; Attorney-General v. Anglesea, 58 N.J.Law, 372, 33 A. 971; Mortland v. Christian, 52 N.J.Law, 521, 20 A. 673; Leeds v. Atlantic City, 81 N.J.Law, 230, 80 A. 23; Johnson v. Asbury Park, 58 N.J.Law, 604, 33 A. 850; Alexander v. City of Elizabeth, 56 N.J.Law, 71, 28 A. 51, 23 L.R.A. 525; Schmalz v. Wooley, 56 N.J.Eq. 649, 39 A. 539; Stahl v. Trenton, 54 N.J.Law, 444, 24 A. 478; Heifer v. Simon, 53 N.J.Law, 550, 22 A. 120; State v. Somers Point, 52 N.J.Law, 32, 18 A. 694. 6 L.R.A. 57; Dobbins v. Northampton Tp., 50 N.J.Law, 496, 14 A. 587; Van Giesen v. Bloomfield, 47 N.J.Law, 442, 2 A. 249; Hammer v. State ex rel. Richards, 44 N.J.Law, 667; Rutgers v. New Brunswick, 42 N.J.Law, 51; Trenton Iron Co. v. Yard, 42 N.J.Law, 357; Van Riper v. Parsons, 40 N.J.Law, 1.

Thus, population furnishes a valid basis of classification in statutes relating to the structure, machinery, and powers of municipal government, "where population bears a reasonable relation to the necessities and proprieties of the various grades of municipal government." Lewis v. Jersey City, supra. As was said by Chief Justice Depue in that case, "the classification must rest on some characteristic or peculiarity plainly distinguishing the places included from those excluded, and making the legislation fit and appropriate to those included, and inappropriate to those which are omitted. It must embrace all, and exclude none, whose conditions and wants render such legislation equally appropriate to them as a class." See, also, Randolph v. Wood, 49 N.J.Law, 85, 7 A. 286, affirmed 50 N.J.Law, 175, 15 A. 271; Hart v. Scott, 50 N.J.Law, 585, 15 A. 272, 1 L.R.A. 86; Warner v. Hoagland, 51 N. J.Law, 62, 16 A. 166.

The exclusions from the statutory class are ordinarily determinative of the generality of the act in the constitutional signification. This test was applied by the Supreme Court in Budd v. Hancock, 66 N.J. Law, 133, 135, 48 A. 1023, 1024. There Mr. Justice Garrison said: "A law is special in a constitutional sense when, by force of an inherent limitation, it arbitrarily separates some persons, places, or things from others, upon which, but for such limitation it would operate. The test of a special law is the appropriateness of its provisions...