State v. Ocean Grove Camp-Meeting Ass'n

• Decision Date: 24 June 1896
• Citation: 35 A. 794,59 N.J.L. 110
• Parties: STATE (SLOCUM, Prosecutor) v. OCEAN GROVE CAMP-MEETING ASS'N.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

35 A. 794

59 N.J.L. 110

STATE (SLOCUM, Prosecutor)

v. OCEAN GROVE CAMP-MEETING ASS'N.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

June 24, 1896.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Certiorari to court of common pleas, Monmouth county; Conover, Judge.

Certiorari by the state, on the prosecution of David Slocum, against the Ocean Grove Camp-Meeting Association, to review a conviction of a violation of an ordinance of defendant. Reversed.

Argued February term, 1896, before DEPUE, VAN SYCKEL, and GUMMERE, JJ.

S. A. Patterson, for prosecutor.

J. E. Lanning, for defendant.

GUMMERE, J. The judgment of the common pleas court brought up by the writ in this case was recovered against the prosecutor for the violation of an ordinance of the defendant association forbidding the vending from a wagon of fruits and vegetables within the limits of the association territory, unless the person so vending should first take out a license for that purpose. The suit was originally brought before a justice of the peace, and, from the judgment rendered against him in the justice's court the prosecutor appealed to the court of common pleas, which affirmed the judgment of the court below. We are now asked to set aside the latter judgment as illegal and void. In 1894 the legislature passed an act conferring certain governmental powers upon boards of trustees of camp-meeting associations. P. L. 1894, p. 142. Ry the eighth section of the act power was granted to such boards to make and enforce ordinances regulating the granting of licenses, and fixing the fees to be paid therefor, and by the same section said boards were authorized to prescribe penalties for the violation of such ordinances. The ninth section of the act conferred upon such associations the right to prosecute any person before a justice of the peace for failure to observe the provisions of any such ordinance, and to recover judgment for the penalty prescribed therein. Under this statutory authority the board of trustees of the Ocean Grove Association passed an ordinance regulating the granting of licenses, and fixed the fees to be paid by hucksters and persons vending fruit and vegetables in wagons at $10. They further ordained that no person should use the streets within the limits of their territory for any purpose for which a license was required, without first obtaining such license; and that any one doing so should, upon conviction thereof before a justice of the peace, be punished for each offense by a fine of not less than...