State v. Collins

• Decision Date: 03 June 1897
• Citation: 60 N.J.L. 367,37 A. 623
• Parties: STATE (BOARD OF CHOSEN FREEHOLDERS OF COUNTY OF CAMDEN, Prosecutor) v. COLLINS, Collector.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

37 A. 623

60 N.J.L. 367

STATE (BOARD OF CHOSEN FREEHOLDERS OF COUNTY OF CAMDEN, Prosecutor)

v. COLLINS, Collector.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

June 3, 1897.

(Syllabus by the Court)

Certiorari by the state, at the prosecution of the board of chosen freeholders of the county of Camden, against William Collins, collector of the township of Washington. Tax set aside.

Argued February term, 1897, before DIXON, LUDLOW, and COLLINS, JJ.

Henry S. Scovel, for prosecutor.

A. H. Swackhammer, for defendant.

COLLINS, J. In 1890 the poor farm of the county of Camden, lying along the boundary line of the county of Gloucester, was enlarged by the purchase of 159 acres of adjoining land in the township of Washington in the county last named. At that time farms were taxable only where the owner resided, and no attempt was made to tax this land. On March 28, 1895, the legislature enacted that each part of a farm divided by a county line should be taxed where situate (Gen. St p. 3455, pi. 818), and thereupon the assessor of Washington township assessed said 159 acres. The tax levied thereon is now before this court for review. The prosecutor resists the tax, claiming exemption under the general tax law. Gen. St. p. 3320, pl. 200. That statute provides that "the following * * * property shall be exempt from taxation, namely, * * * the property of the counties, townships, cities and boroughs of this state." The defendant contends that this broad language must be limited by conditioning the exemption upon lawful ownership and public use.

As to the first of these supposed conditions, the prosecutor points to the general power of counties to hold real and personal estate conferred by law. Gen. St. p. 410, § 2. This, too, is general in terms; but the defendant contends that an extraterritorial holding, to be lawful, must have a specific warrant. Such is the opinion of most text writers, with reservations based on necessity. The adjudged cases are collected in 15 Am. & Eng. Enc. Law, p. 1060. On the other hand, it is well settled that only the state, in a direct proceeding, can attack a title alleged to be unlawfully held by one of its municipalities. 2 Dill. Mun. Corp. (4th Ed.) § 574 (444), and cases cited; Chambers v. City of St. Louis, 29 Mo. 543, 577. Hence the statutes, to which we have been referred, authorizing a poor-house at such place in the county as the chosen freeholders shall appoint (Gen. St. p. 413, § 30), and restricting an addition to a county farm to 30 acres, however useful they might be in a direct proceeding instituted by the state, have no applicability to the present controversy. It surely cannot be that the right to tax property, otherwise exempt, can depend upon such a defeasibility of title. In the case in hand the property would not become taxable if the state should defeat the county's title. Neither the right to defeat the title, nor the land itself when escheated, would be taxable, for the property of the state is not subject to taxation. Trustees for the Support of Public Schools v. Inhabitants of City of Trenton, 30 N.J.Eq. 667. Decisions limiting general words of exemption in charters of private corporations to such property as may lawfully be held for charter purposes are not authority for the defendant's contention. In such cases the legal implication is in favor of the power to tax, while, as against municipal corporations, the...