State v. Inhabitants of Bloomfield

• Decision Date: 30 November 1885
• Citation: 2 A. 249,47 N.J.L. 442
• Parties: STATE v. INHABITANTS OF BLOOMFIELD.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

2 A. 249

47 N.J.L. 442

STATE

v. INHABITANTS OF BLOOMFIELD.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

November term, 1885.

Riker & Riker, for plaintiff.

Joseph L. Munn and Henry Young, for defendant.

VAN SYCKEL, J. The question in this case is whether the assessment of taxes for the year 1884, in the township of Bloomfield, against the relator, for gas and water purposes is valid. In 1873 the legislature passed an act authorizing the township committee of the township of Bloomfield, in the county of Essex, to establish, within the limits of said township, one or more lamp-districts, and to assess upon the persons and property within such lamp-districts the cost of lighting the streets. In 1877, in Baldwin v. Fuller, 39 N. J. Law, 576, this court declared that & law conferring like powers upon the township committee of Montclair township was unconstitutional, for the reason that a taxing district could not be established less in area than the political district of which it is part. This decision having been affirmed by the court of errors at November term, 1878, (40 N. J. Law, 615,) the Bloomfield act of 1873 became incapable of enforcement.

The necessity for further legislation led to the passage of the act of 1879, which has given rise to the present litigation in regard to the gas tax. Laws of 1879, p. 337. This act provides that "in all cases where the streets, or any of them, in any city or township of the state, have been or are lighted with gas or oil, under or in pursuance of any authority conferred by the legislature upon such city or township, it shall hereafter be lawful for the common council or township committee of any such city or township, by resolution or ordinance, to cause any street or streets, and any public place, or any part or parts thereof in such city or township, to be lighted with gas or otherwise, and for that purpose to erect the necessary apparatus, and to cause the annual expense thereof to be certified to the assessor or assessors of such city or township; and such annual expense shall thereupon be levied, assessed, and collected from all the real and personal property in said city or township in the same manner as taxes for making and repairing roads or streets in said city or township are assessed and collected."

The relator claims that this act is special and local, and therefore void. It applies to any city or township of the state where the streets, or any of them, have been or are lighted with gas or oil, under or in pursuance of any legislative authority conferred upon such city or township. It is conceded that the act of 1873 is a special and local law, designed to confer upon the township of Bloomfield an authority which has been granted to very few townships in the state. Neither Bloomfield township nor any other township in the state had the power to create a lamp-district narrower in territorial limits than the entire township, and to cast the expense of lighting such district upon the whole of such political division. Such authority was sought to be established by the legislation in controversy. It was an effort to bestow upon one or two townships a power denied to all others. Unless the fact, therefore, that Bloomfield township possessed the power to light streets furnished a legal basis of classification for the purpose of legislation, the act of 1879 must be regarded as special and local. If this constitutes a substantial classification, the constitutional amendments will offer a feeble barrier to many of the evils which the chief justice, in Van Riper v. Parsons, 40 N. J. Law, 1, declares it was their purpose to repress. He there says: "The object of the constitutional regulation is manifest. It was to exterminate, root and branch, special and local legislation, and to substitute general law in the place of it in every instance in which such substitution could be effected." Again he says: "Among these minor mischiefs was the practice of amending and supplementing municipal charters with a profusion which knew no bounds; the consequence being that the law of this department was kept in a state of constant flux and transition, so as to make the consolidation of it into a system by judicial decision an impossibility. These and others of a similar cast were the mischiefs that the constitutional supplement in question was intended to eradicate." In Tiger v. Morris Co., 42 N. J. Law, 631, the court of errors and appeals declared that one of the chief objects in the recent change in the fundamental law was to bring into harmony the many local charters which had been previously granted, by removing the great diversity in powers hitherto granted.

This purpose will be frustrated by establishing a system of classification which will individualize the political districts of the state, and serve to perpetuate the existing differences which mark them. Thereby, in every case where a political district had, prior to the adoption of the amendments, a grant of power peculiar to itself, it would be competent for the legislature to amplify, restrict, amend, change, or modify such grant of power by legislation applicable exclusively to such locality. The competency to legislate specially would be co-extensive and coexistent with the diversity which has heretofore prevailed in the legislation for local government. The peculiarities and differences which the amendments were framed to...