State v. N.J. & N. Y. R. Co.

• Decision Date: 03 June 1897
• Citation: 60 N.J.L. 353,37 A. 614
• Parties: STATE (GLAZIER, Prosecutor) v. NEW JERSEY & N. Y. R. CO.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

37 A. 614

60 N.J.L. 353

STATE (GLAZIER, Prosecutor)

v. NEW JERSEY & N. Y. R. CO.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

June 3, 1897.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Certiorari by the state, on the prosecution of Thomas Glazier, against the New Jersey & New York Railroad Company, to review an order appointing commissioners to appraise certain lands of prosecutor. Proceedings set aside.

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

Dickinson, Thompson & McMaster, for prosecutor.

C. & R. W. Parker, for defendant.

DIXON, J. On the petition of the New Jersey & New York Railroad Company, the judge of the Bergen county common pleas, on December 11, 1896, made an order appointing commissioners to appraise certain lands of the prosecutor and assess his damages, to the end that the company, on paying the sum awarded, might take the land for railroad purposes. This order the prosecutor now seeks to have set aside.

So far as we have been able to discover, the powers of condemnation granted by special statutes to this company and its predecessors by name have been exhausted or have expired, and its right now to exercise the right of eminent domain must be found in general laws. Of statutes intended to be general, there are two which may be deemed pertinent to the present conditions,— one, "An act concerning railroad corporations," approved March 6, 1877 (Gen. St. p. 2694); the other, a supplement to "An act respecting railroads and canals," approved March 25, 1881 (Gen. St. p. 2685). The former act is designed to enable railroad companies to acquire additional land adjoining their roads as constructed on their right of way, and the latter to enable them to acquire a perfect title to land in which they have only a defeasible title, or their original title has been extinguished. According to the testimony taken in this cause, the present proceeding was intended to combine these objects, — to remedy a defect in the company's title to its roadbed, and to acquire lands adjoining the roadbed. It is not now necessary to go into a critical examination of the statutes just cited in order to determine whether they accord with the constitutional edict that only by general laws shall corporate powers be conferred, nor to decide whether under peculiar circumstances their diverse objects may be united in one proceeding. Conceding the affirmative of each of these queries, it is plain that the petition presented to the judge must be consistent with the application of...