State v. Spragg

• Decision Date: 07 November 1895
• Citation: 58 N.J.L. 273,33 A. 213
• Parties: STATE (TIMS, Prosecutor) v. SPRAGG.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

33 A. 213

58 N.J.L. 273

STATE (TIMS, Prosecutor)

v. SPRAGG.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Nov. 7, 1895.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Certiorari to Newark district court; Truesdell, Judge.

Certiorari by the state, at the prosecution of John Tims, against Henry Spragg. Writ dismissed.

Argued June term, 1895, before VAN SYCKEL and LIPPINCOTT, JJ.

John R. Hardin, for plaintiff.

James N. Trimble, for defendant.

VAN SYCKEL, J. The subject of review is the judgment of the First district court of the city of Newark in an action of debt brought by Spragg against Tims to recover double rent for willfully holding over after the end of his term, under the provisions of the twenty-seventh section of the landlord and tenant act (Revision, p. 575). The section provides that the person so holding over shall, for and during the time he so holds over, pay to the person unlawfully kept out of possession, "at the rate of double the yearly value of the lands, for so long a time as the same are detained; to be recovered in any court of record in this state, by action of debt, where unto the defendant or defendants shall be obliged to give special bail, and against the recovering of which said penalty there shall be no relief in equity." The only question to be decided is whether the district court had jurisdiction of the case. Several grounds are relied upon to show a want of jurisdiction.

1. It is insisted that the district court had no power to try an action for a penalty in excess of $100. The act creating the Newark district court invested it with the civil jurisdiction of justices of the peace under the small cause act, under the supplement of 1847 to the landlord and tenant act, under the attachment act, and under the forcible entry and detainer act. Pamph. Laws 1873, p. 245. At the time this act was passed, the jurisdiction of justices of the peace in the court of small causes was limited to $100, and the prosecutor argues that, notwithstanding the legislation of 1878 and 1882, the jurisdiction of the district court in suits for penalties has not been amplified, and that it was not competent to entertain this controversy. The act of 1878 (Supp. Revision, p. 265) extends jurisdiction of the district court to "every suit of a civil nature at law in which the debt or other matter in dispute does not exceed two hundred dollars." The act of 1882 (Supp. Revision, p. 261) enlarges it to $300. In Koch v. Vanderhoof, 49 N. J. Law, 619, 9 Atl. 771. the judgment of this court was that in actions for penalties the jurisdiction of the district court was not extended by those acts beyond its original limit of $100. Mr. Justice Dixon, in delivering the opinion of the court, said that, while the term "every suit of a civil nature" may be applied to the form of litigation in contradistinction to that which is criminal, and thus embrace an action for penalties, it may also with propriety be applied to the nature of the litigation, as growing out of the relations of citizens inter sese, rather than their relations to the state. From a review of various statutes in which the words "suits of a civil nature" had been previously employed, he concluded that in the acts of 1878 and 1882 the legislature had in mind three classes of suits: (1) Private suits for private wrongs; (2) private suits for public wrongs; (3) public suits for public wrongs; and that "by suits of a civil nature" those acts were intended to include only those of the first class. Koch v. Vanderhoof was brought to recover a penalty of $200, given by the oleomargarine act of 1885 to "any person who sued for the...