State v. Bd. of Finance of Jersey City
| Decision Date | 06 November 1890 |
| Citation | 53 N.J.L. 62,20 A. 755 |
| Parties | STATE ex rel. TRUSTEES OF THE FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY OF THE CITY OF JERSEY CITY v. BOARD OF FINANCE OF JERSEY CITY. |
| Court | New Jersey Supreme Court |
(Syllabus by the Court.)
On rule to show cause why mandamus should not issue requiring the board of finance of Jersey City to forthwith appropriate, raise, and pay to relators $25,553.15. The rule was allowed February 15, 1890.
Argued at February term, 1890, before KNAPP and MAGIE, JJ.
Mr. Record, for relators. Mr. Edwards, for Jersey City.
By the statement of facts agreed on by counsel, and on which the rule was brought to hearing, it appears that the provisions of the passed April 1.1884, (Laws 1884, p. 110,) as modified by a supplement approved April 2, 1888, (Laws 1888, p. 378,) and a further supplement approved March 19, 1889, (Laws 1889, p. 75,) have been adopted by the votes of a large majority of the electors of Jersey City voting at an election held April 9, 1889. Relators thereafter organized pursuant to the provisions of those acts. By section 3 of the said act of 1884, it is provided that, if a majority of voters favor the adoption of the act, it shall become the duty of the appropriate board of the city to appropriate and raise, by tax, in the manner city taxes are assessed, levied, and collected, a sum equal to one-third of a mill on every dollar of assessable property, which sum is to be paid to the treasurer of the board of trustees of the free public library. In Jersey City, the board of finance is charged with the duty of appropriating and raising by taxation all moneys to be thus appropriated and raised. One-third of a mill on all the assessable property in said city for the year following the election amounted to $25,553.15. That board did not appropriate that sum, but did appropriate and raise $10,000. In taking this action, I think it is obvious that the board of finance was derelict in duty. The act of the legislature, sovereign over the matter of taxation, was express and mandatory in requiring this tax to be appropriated and raised. It left nothing to the judgment or discretion of the local authority. A failure to obey its mandate was a misfeasance, and a writ of mandamus may well issue to require the performance of the unperformed and neglected duty, if that duty may be now performed.
The only question then is whether a writ issued in the terms...
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