State v. City of Millville

• Decision Date: 30 March 1899
• Citation: 43 A. 443,63 N.J.L. 123
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE (MASSINGER, Prosecutor) v. CITY OF MILLVILLE et al.

43 A. 443

63 N.J.L. 123

STATE (MASSINGER, Prosecutor)

v. CITY OF MILLVILLE et al.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

March 30, 1899.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Certiorari by the state, on the prosecution of Jerome C. Massinger, against the city of Millville and others, to review a conviction. Conviction set aside.

Argued November term, 1898, before LIPPINCOTT and GUMMERE, JJ.

Louis H. Miller, for prosecutor.

Martin W. Lane, for defendant.

LIPPINCOTT, J. This writ brings up for review a conviction under an ordinance of the city of Millville entitled "An ordinance to regulate the use of bicycles, tricycles and similar vehicles in the city of Millville." The prosecutor is a physician in that city, and the proceedings were instituted against him for riding a bicycle on the streets of the city of Millville by night without having the lamp attached thereto lighted. He was convicted, and the magistrate before whom the conviction was had imposed upon him a fine of five dollars and costs for a violation of the ordinance. The fact appears to be that he had an urgent call, as a physician, to attend a child lying at the point of death, and in his haste he forgot or neglected to light the lamp attached to his bicycle. Section 1 of this ordinance provides that "every bicycle, tricycle and similar vehicle shall have a lighted lamp attached thereto, to be plainly seen fifty yards ahead, and said lamp shall be lighted between the hours from one hour after sunset to one hour before sunrise inclusive." There are other sections of this ordinance regulating the use of bicycles, tricycles, and other similar vehicles. The fourth section of this ordinance also provides that any person violating any of the provisions of the ordinance shall forfeit and pay a fine of five dollars for each and every offense, to be collected in an action of debt. The ordinance was passed by the city council of Millville on May 7, 1897, and approved May 8, 1897. The only statute which at that time authorized the enactment of this class of ordinances was an act entitled "An act to regulate the use of bicycles, tricycles and similar vehicles and to require uniformity of ordinances affecting the same," approved March 3, 1896 (P. L. 1896, p. 21). This act authorizes the several cities, towns, boroughs, villages, townships, and other municipalities to pass ordinances in relation to the subject-matter in accordance with the provisions of the act. The first section of this act provides that the ordinance, if any shall be enacted, shall require that all bicycles, tricycles, and similar vehicles, when in use in the public highways or streets or places, shall have a lamp, of such illuminating power as to be plainly seen 100 yards ahead, attached thereto, and kept lighted, between one hour after sunset and one hour before sunrise. The act provides, also, that no city, town, borough, village, township, or other municipality shall have power to make any ordinance, by-law, or regulation respecting the use of bicycles or tricycles, except as provided in the act; and, except as provided by this act, no ordinance, by-law, or regulation heretofore made or hereafter made by a city, town, borough, village, or other municipality, in respect to bicycles or tricycles, shall have any force or effect it also repeals all acts inconsistent therewith. This act evidently was intended to compel, under its provisions, a uniformity, throughout the state, of municipal regulations and ordinances respecting the use of such vehicles, and in providing, also, a uniform penalty...