State v. Second Dist. Court of Newark

• Decision Date: 07 March 1899
• Parties: STATE ex rel. REILLY v. SECOND DISTRICT COURT OF NEWARK.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

42 A. 842

63 N.J.L. 541

STATE ex rel. REILLY

v. SECOND DISTRICT COURT OF NEWARK.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

March 7, 1899.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Application by the state, on the relation of Cornelius Reilly, for a writ of mandamus to the Second district court of Newark. Rule discharged.

Argued February term, 1899, before LUDLOW and DIXON, JJ.

Malcolm MacLear, for relator.

DIXON, J. The only question raised in this case is whether the provisions of the district court act (P. L. 1898, p. 556, § 205 et seq.), which give an appeal on matters of law to the circuit court, are unconstitutional. The ground on which they are said to be invalid is that they interfere with the exclusive jurisdiction which the supreme court exercises by writ of certiorari. We think this ground is not tenable. The suits that may be brought in the district court are such as might be instituted in the circuit court; and, if there instituted, the supreme court could not review the decisions of that tribunal by certiorari, nor at all, if the litigant chose to carry his grievance directly to the court of errors. This shows that the supreme court has no exclusive jurisdiction over the questions involved. When, therefore, the legislature authorized parties to bring those questions into the circuit court through the district court, instead of immediately, no prerogative of the supreme court was invaded; only the procedure was changed. No doubt, while the cause remains in the statutory tribunal, this court can, by certiorari, require the record to be sent here, in order that its legality may be tested; but there is nothing in the district court act which attempts to restrain the exercise of that power. The eases of Flanagan v. City of Plainfield, 44 N. J. Law, 118, and McCullough v. Essex Circuit Court, 59 N. J. Law, 103, 34 Atl. 1072, are cited to support the claim of the relator, but they are not in point. In the Flanagan Case the statute condemned purported to confer upon the judge of a circuit court authority to issue our prerogative writ of certiorari, and denied to the supreme court its constitutional right to review the proceedings of a statutory tribunal; and in the McCullough Case the statute was designed to empower the circuit court to annul certain municipal ordinances by a direct proceeding brought to test their reasonableness, a power which, so far as it is judicial, belongs exclusively to the supreme court. We conclude that the district court was right in refusing...