State v. Bd. of Chosen Freeholders of Passaic County

• Decision Date: 28 May 1894
• Citation: 56 N.J.L. 459,29 A. 331
• Parties: STATE (MAYOR, ETC., OF CITY OF PATERSON, Prosecutor) v. BOARD OF CHOSEN FREEHOLDERS OF PASSAIC COUNTY.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

29 A. 331

56 N.J.L. 459

STATE (MAYOR, ETC., OF CITY OF PATERSON, Prosecutor)

v. BOARD OF CHOSEN FREEHOLDERS OF PASSAIC COUNTY.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

May 28, 1894.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Certiorari by the state, at the prosecution of the mayor and aldermen of the city of Paterson, to review a resolution of the board of chosen freeholders of the county of Passaic.

Argued February term, 1894, before ABBETT and DIXON, JJ.

T. H. Simonton, for prosecutor. De Witt Bolton, for defendant.

DIXON, J. This certiorari brings up the resolution passed by the board of chosen freeholders of Passaic county, at the annual meeting on May 10, 1893, making its appropriations for the fiscal year beginning June 1, 1893, and ordering taxation to meet the same. By stipulation between the parties, ad matters connected with the appropriation for lighting roads by electricity are eliminated from the cause. There remain to be considered two questions,—one as to the right of the board to impose taxes for "new work on roads," outside of repairs; the other as to its right to have $73,000 assessed for the "payment of debt."

The first question turns upon the construction of the supplement to an act approved March 19, 1889, entitled "An act to enable boards of chosen freeholders to acquire, improve and maintain public roads" (P. L. 1889, p. 58), which supplement was approved April 9, 1892 (P. L. 1892, p. 471). The original act and its previous supplements (P. L. 1890, p. 89, and Id., p. 292) had empowered the board of chosen freeholders in any county to assume control of any public roads in the county, which were then to become known as "county roads," and thereafter to grade, macadamize, and otherwise improve them, and to raise the money for such improvement partly by tax, and partly by the issue of county bonds. There were also, at the time of the passage of this supplement of 1892, several other statutes, under various titles, by the terms of which boards of chosen freeholders could improve certain public roads in their counties, and could levy taxes to meet the cost thereof. Vide P. L. 1882, p. 40; P. L. 1887, p. 175; P. L. 1888, p. 162; P. L. 1890, p. 294; P. L. 1882, p. 177; P. L. 1883, p. 225. The roads embraced in these statutes had, some of them, been toll roads, but, at the date of the supplement of 1892, they differed in no particulars from the roads referred to in the act of March 19, 1889. All the enactments heretofore cited related to what were then ordinary public roads, lying wholly within a single county, and having no essential characteristics distinguishing them from each other. Under these circumstances, the supplement of 1892 enacted that, in counties of the second class, no more than $350,000 of bonds should be issued under the act of 1889 and its supplements, and the board of chosen freeholders should not grade, macadamize, or improve any road in the county except with money obtained from the sale of bonds under said act and supplements, and that all acts and parts of acts in conflict therewith should be repealed. Hence arises the question for decision,—whether this statute prevents boards of chosen freeholders in counties of the second class (to which Passaic belongs) from levying a tax directly for the grading, macadamizing, or improvement of any public roads; not only those which became county roads under the act of 1889, but also those of like character which had become county roads, in the same sense, under other laws. Such, I think, is the meaning of the statute. All the laws which have been cited are in pari materia,— the improvement of ordinary highways by the county authorities,—and therefore should be construed together, even though their titles may be verbally different. The language of this supplement is broad enough to include all the highways which form the subject of these various laws; indeed, it is as general as possible, "any road in the county," and I find no sufficient reason for restricting its natural scope....