Riccio v. Mayor

• Decision Date: 21 September 1903
• Citation: 55 A. 1109,69 N.J.L. 649
• Parties: RICCIO v. MAYOR, ETC., OF CITY OF HOBOKEN.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

55 A. 1109

69 N.J.L. 649

RICCIO

v. MAYOR, ETC., OF CITY OF HOBOKEN.

Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey.

Sept. 21, 1903.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Error to Supreme Court.

Action by Michael Riccio against the mayor and council of the city of Hoboken. Judgment for defendant (54 Atl. 801), and plaintiff brings error. Reversed.

John R. Hardin and Malcolm W. Niven, for plaintiff in error.

Robert H. McCarter, Atty. Gen., James F. Minturn, and Michael Dunn, for defendant in error.

PITNEY, J. The question presented for solution is the constitutionality of the socalled general school law of 1902, entitled "An act to establish a system of public instruction" (P. L. 1902, p. 69). It is attacked as being a "local or special law providing for the management and support of free public schools," and therefore prohibited by article 4, § 7, par. 11, of the Constitution as amended in 1875. The act contains 250 sections. Our present inquiry relates particularly to those portions that have to do with the home government of the schools, as distinguished from state and county supervision. Sections 33 to 41 are grouped under article 5, with the caption "School Districts." Sections 42 to 80 are grouped under article 6, with the caption "Boards of Education in City School Districts." Sections 81 to 99 are grouped under article 7, with the caption "Boards of Education in Township, Incorporated Town and Borough School Districts." Articles 6 and 7 provide separate codes for the school districts covered thereby, respectively. The differences relate principally to the mode of choosing the local trustees, and to the method of raising moneys for the support and maintenance of the schools. For city districts there is a referendum to the people of the question whether the board of education shall be appointed by the mayor, or shall be elected by the people. The annual financial budget is to be made up by a board of school estimate, of which two members are to be appointed by the board of education from its own member-ship, and the common council or other body having power to make appropriation of moneys raised by tax in such city is to appoint two from its member-ship, and these four, together with the mayor or other chief executive officer of the city, are to constitute the board. The same board determines the amounts necessary to be raised for the purchase of lands, and construction, etc., of school buildings; the power of appropriating and borrowing money for the purpose being reposed in the common council or other municipal body. In the township, incorporated town, and borough school districts, the board of education is to be chosen by the people at the annual school meeting. Such questions as the raising of money by district tax, the issuing of bonds, the purchase of lands and construction of school buildings, and the condemnation of land, are to be decided by vote of the people of the district. The specific provisions respecting the raising of a district tax for school purposes are found in sections 179 and 180. Those relating to school district bonds are found in sections 188 to 193.

From the opinion delivered by Mr. Justice Dixon in the Supreme Court (54 Atl. 801). it is manifest that the only question discussed before that court was the constitutional validity of a classification of school districts, for the purpose of divergent legislation, made by placing all city school districts in one class, and all other school districts in another class. The act was dealt with as if, either by its terms or by force of previous legislation, all the school districts of the state were coterminous with the bounds of some municipality. In this court, certain features of the act not adverted to below were pointed out and discussed. As will be presently shown, they result in subdividing the two principal classes of districts just mentioned, and bring into play special discriminations, so that the act does not operate uniformly in all cities, nor uniformly in all the other forms of municipality.

Our Constitution, since the amendments of 1875, has recognized the common-law classification of municipalities into counties, cities, incorporated towns, boroughs, villages, and townships; and it is already established by repeated decisions of this court that the constitutional inhibition against special legislation regulating the internal affairs of municipalities is not violated by laws that make distinctions between the different forms of municipalities, based merely on the common-law classification. Hermann v. Guttenberg, 63 N. J. Law, 616, 44 Atl. 758; Boorum v. Connelly, 66 N. J. Law, 197, 48 Atl. 955, 88 Am. St. Rep. 469. It is equally well settled that where the Legislature makes a departure from the common-law or constitutional classification, either by subdividing one of the classes, or by excepting a part of a class from a given legislative scheme, the legislative classification thus resorted to must be germane to the purposes of the enactment. It must rest on peculiarities or characteristics that substantially differentiate the localities included from those excluded, and that render divergent legislative enactments appropriate to the several localities respectively.

In the present case we have to consider not only the constitutional prohibition of special laws regulating municipal affairs, but the additional prohibition of special laws "providing for the management and support of free public schools." In Lowthorp v. Trenton, 62 N. J. Law, 795, 44 Atl. 755, this court, speaking through the present Chief Justice, intimated a doubt whether under this clause any classification of schools or of school districts was permissible. Upon full consideration we are now unanimously of the opinion that such classification, within due limits of generality, is permissible. Assuming that, for purposes of local management and support, a single school might be treated as a natural, logical unit, and that the adjacent territory, whose children should attend there for education, and whose citizens and property owners ought to contribute especially to its support and to have voice in its management, might be set apart as a "school district," we entertain no doubt that these units may be grouped together, so that single districts may be made to comprise numerous schools, combined for purposes of local government. We are likewise unanimous in the view that schools and school districts having characteristics so nearly alike as to require similar treatment in legislation may be grouped to gether in classes, and that such classification may be made the basis of divergent legislative provisions, appropriate to the different classes, respectively. In the opinion of all, a legislative classification of school districts, proceeding on lines germane to the objects and purposes of the law, would serve to make general an enactment providing for the management and support of the free public schools.

Upon one question, however, the court is divided, and upon only one. It is this: May the Legislature, upon subdividing the whole territory of the state into school districts coextensive with the municipal bounds of the several cities, incorporated towns, boroughs, and townships, establish divergent regulations for the management and support of the schools, based merely upon the common-law classification of the municipalities themselves? A majority of the members of the court have reached the conclusion that this question is to be answered in the affirmative. They consider that the management and support of the schools is so much a matter of local concern as to admit of legislative treatment according to the same lines of classification that apply to the general internal affairs of municipalities. They hold, therefore, that the common-law classification of municipalities may be adopted in legislating about matters of school management and support, when the school districts are made to conform to the corporate limits of the municipalities, and that the declarations to the contrary in the case of Lowthorp v. Trenton, 61 N. J. Law, 484, 40 Atl. 442; Id., 62 N. J. Law, 795, 44 Atl. 755—have been in effect overruled by the latep cases of Hermann v. Guttenberg, 63 N. J. Law, 616, 44 Atl. 758; Boorum v. Connelly, 66 N. J. Law, 197. 48 Atl. 955, 88 Am. St. Rep. 469; and Lewis v. Jersey City, 66 N. J. Law, 582, 50 Atl. 3-16.

A minority of the judges, including the writer of this opinion, have found ourselves unable to adopt this view. We give to the constitutional prohibition of special laws respecting schools an independent force and effect, unqualified by the prohibition respecting municipal legislation. We read it in connection with the constitutional mandate that "the Legislature shall provide for the maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system of free public schools for the instruction of all the children in this state between the ages of five and eighteen years." Assuming that the Legislature might make the schools a matter of special concern to the several municipalities, either by establishing school districts coterminous with municipal districts, but having separate local government, or even by delegating the management and support of the schools to the municipal governments themselves, we are unable to see how the constitutional prohibition of special laws for the management and support of the schools can be thus deprived of effect. Differences in the mode of school management and support, that are made to depend upon the mere circumstance that one group of schools is located within a "city," and another group located within an "incorporated town," seem to us inconsistent with the Constitution. Such was the decision in the Lowthorp Case, and we are unable to see that that decision has been expressly or by necessary implication overruled up to the present time.

Accepting, however, the view of the majority in the present case as settling the law upon...