State v. Inhabitants of the City of Trenton

• Decision Date: 09 March 1888
• Citation: 14 A. 578,50 N.J.L. 338
• Parties: STATE (MCCHESNEY, Prosecutor) v. INHABITANTS OF THE CITY OF TRENTON.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

14 A. 578

50 N.J.L. 338

STATE (MCCHESNEY, Prosecutor)

v. INHABITANTS OF THE CITY OF TRENTON.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

March 9, 1888.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

On certiorari.

Argued November term, 1887, before DEPUE, VAN SYCKEL, and KNAPP, JJ.

G. D. W. Vroom, for plaintiff. W. M. Lanning, for defendants.

VAN SYCKEL, J. This controversy involves the construction of the seventeenth section of the charter of the city of Trenton, (Laws 1874, p. 339,) which is as follows: "That the common council, at the regular meeting on the third Monday in April, or as soon thereafter as circumstances will permit, shall, by the votes of a majority of all its members, appoint a city clerk, one member of the board of city assessors, a city treasurer, a city solicitor, a city marshal, a city surveyor, an overseer of the poor, a street commissioner, a sealer of weights and measures, keepers of the public pounds, two police justices; and shall at the same time elect by ballot two persons to act as city physicians; should any ballot contain the name of more than one person for city physician, such ballot shall not be counted; the two persons receiving the highest number of votes shall be declared elected; and shall from time to time appoint such other subordinate officers as the common council deem necessary for the ordering and governing of the city, and the execution of the powers and duties conferred and imposed upon the corporation by this act. The officers above named shall hold their offices for one year unless sooner removed, and until their successors shall be appointed and qualified. The police justices shall be elected by ballot. Should any ballot contain the name of more than one person for police justice, such ballot shall not be counted. The two persons receiving the highest number of votes shall be declared elected."

Considering this section by itself, it is doubtful whether the language, "the officers above named shall hold their offices for one year," applies to the "subordinate officers" mentioned in said section. If it is competent, in the interpretation of these words, to assume that the draughtsman of the charter of 1874 had before him the seventeenth section of the previous charter of 1866, p. 370, and that he used the word "named" in the same sense in which it is used in that section, it appears to us that any reasonable doubt as to its import is removed. The seventeenth section of the charter of 1866 is as follows: "The common council, by a majority of the whole number of members, shall appoint annually a city clerk, a city surveyor, a clerk of the market, a city marshal, a city solicitor, a street commissioner, a sealer of weights and measures, and two police justices, and such other subordinate officers, not herein named, as they shall deem necessary for the better ordering and governing the said city, and carrying into effect the powers and duties conferred and imposed upon the said common council by this act." The words, "such other subordinate officers not herein named," evidently, in this section, mean, not particularly specified by a name to distinguish them from each other. Conceding, therefore, that tins clear meaning of the seventeenth section of the charter of 1866 was in the mind of the framer of the seventeenth section of the charter of 1874, it is quite clear that he intended, by the words in the latter section, "the officers above named shall hold their offices for one year," to include only those officers particularly specified by name in the preceding part of the section, and to exclude "other subordinate officers." The language is not that all the "foregoing officers shall hold their offices for one year;" words "officers above named" are not so comprehensive. If this interpretation should not prevail for the reasons given in State v. City of Trenton, 13 Atl. Rep. 228, (opinion filed at this term,) the common council had the power, under the twenty-fifth section of the charter of 1874, to appoint the police force to hold their offices during good behavior.

In view of this construction of the city charter, the power of the common council to pass the ordinances...