State v. Twining

• Decision Date: 13 November 1905
• Parties: STATE v. TWINING et al.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

62 A. 402

73 N.J.L. 3

STATE

v. TWINING et al.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Nov. 13, 1905.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Error to Court of Quarter Sessions, Monmouth County.

Albert C. Twining and another were convicted of violating P. L. 1899, p. 450, and bring error. Affirmed.

Argued February term, 1905, before GUMMERE, C. J., and FORT and GARRETSON. JJ.

E. W. Arrowsmith, for plaintiffs in error. H. M. Nevins, for the State.

FORT, J. The defendants were convicted in the Monmouth quarter sessions of exhibiting to an examiner of the state banking department a certain false paper, knowing it to be false, with the intent to deceive such examiner as to the condition of the Monmouth Trust & Safe Deposit Company, of which company Twining was the president and Cornell the treasurer. The false paper consisted of a typewritten copy of a minute of an alleged meeting of the board of directors of the trust company, which meeting was in fact never held. The minute purports to be an authorization for the purchase of 381 shares of the capital stock of the First National Bank of Asbury Park which was found by the examiner among the assets of the trust company. The jury found that the paper was exhibited, and the proof was conclusive that it was false. The indictment is founded upon the violation of section 17, of the trust company act of 1899 (P. L. 1899, p. 450).

The first contention of the defendant is that the section of the act under which the indictment is found is unconstitutional, in that it is a subject-matter, in the body of the act which is not embraced in its title. Const. art. 4, § 7, subd. 4. The title of the act is "An act concerning trust companies (Revision of 1899; P. L. 1899, p. 450). The section in question reads as follows: "Every director, officer, agent or clerk of any trust company who willfully and knowingly subscribes or makes any false statements of facts, or false entries in the books of such trust company, or knowingly subscribes or exhibits any false paper, with intent to deceive any person authorized to examine as to the condition of such trust company, or willfully or knowingly subscribes to or makes any false report, shall be guilty of a high misdemeanor and punished accordingly." If we fully comprehend the suggestion of counsel, it is, that a criminal offense cannot be provided for under the title of the act in this case, or, in fact, under the title of any act which does not specifically relate to the fact that a criminal offense is created by the body of the act. Does the act in question have more than one object? An examination of its provisions will show that they all refer to trust companies. They do not relate to banks or insurance companies, or other corporations. The penalty imposed by section 17 is limited in its effect to directors, officers, agents, or clerks of any trust company. It seems to us that all matters of formation, management, control, regulation, offenses, and penalties are germane to a statute which covers, and is intended to cover, an entire subject-matter, and that a statute embracing the whole subject-matter of trust companies, which is entitled "An act concerning trust companies" may constitutionally include a provision making it an offense to do or fail to do certain named things in the operation and management of a trust company by its directors, officers, agents, or clerks. By the uniform course of legislation in the state, since the adoption of the Constitution of 18-14, it has been the practice by the Legislature to embody in acts relating to an entire subject-matter, penal provisions for the doing of things not permitted by the statute, or the doing of acts prohibited thereby. Upon almost every subject of general legislation this condition of the statute law of the state will be found to exist. Sections making certain acts misdemeanors are found in the banking act (P. L. 1899, pp. 438, 439, 441, §§ 12, 14, 21); the savings bank act (Gen. St. pp. 3008, 3014, §§ 46, 47, 83); the trust company act (P. L. 1898, pp. 460, 461, §§ 15-17); the building and loan act (P. L. 1903, p. 470, § 52); the oyster act (Gen. St. pp. 832, 834-836, §§ 140, 156, 158, 172); the chosen freeholder act (Gen. St. p. 434, § 142); the bottling act (P. L. 1891, p. 218); the acts for protection of graveyards and cemetery associations (Gen. St. p. 355, § 34; Id. p. 361, § 57); the civil rights act (Gen. St. p. 804, § 2); the food and drug act (Gen. St p. 1178, § 94); the dentistry act (P. L. 1898, p. 119), a conviction under which act was sustained in State v. Chapman, 69 N. J. Law, 464, 55 Atl. 94, affirmed 70 N. J. Law, 339, 57 Atl. 391; the fish and game act (Gen. St. pp. 1593, 1595, §§ 177, 182, 192); the health act (Gen. St. pp. 1672, 1673, 1674, 1675, §§ 206-210, 216); the labor act (Gen. St. p. 1904, § 42); the gunpowder act (Gen. St. p. 1634); the honey industry act (Gen. St. p. 1685, § 3); the itinerant venders' act (Gen. St. p. 1828, § 13); the justices act (Gen. St. p. 1870, § 25); and the intoxicating liquor act (Gen. St. pp. 1814, 1824, §§ 150, 200). In the act to regulate elections (revised 1898) penal sections are found from sections 188 to 213, inclusive (P. L. 1898, pp. 321-330). In the medicine and surgery act (Gen. St. pp. 2081, 2082, 2084, 2080, 2089, §§ 4, 14, 25, 88, 50), the pharmacy act (Gen. St. p. 2459, § 9), the revision of the tax act (P. L. 1903, p. 434, §§ 61-62), the warehouseman's act (Gen. St. p. 3746, § 7), and the oaths and affidavits act (Gen. St p. 2329), many penal sections will be found, as also in the harbor masters' act (Gen. St p. 2323, § 64), the pilots' act (Gen. St. p. 2472, § 65), the weights and measures act (Gen. St. p. 3753, § 13), and many others.

We are not prepared to overthrow all the penal clauses in practically all the general acts of the state, after a uniform practice of over half a century of treating such clauses as germane to statutes embodying but a single subject. We think where a penal clause, in a statute embracing a given subject, simply relates to and provides for the punishment of violations of the provisions of such act, that such a provision is not in conflict with article 4, § 7, par. 4, of the state Constitution, and that it is not essential to valid legislation against offenses created by such acts, that they should be enacted under the title of "An act for the punishment of crimes." The case chiefly relied upon to sustain the contention of the plaintiff in error was Shivers v. Newton, 45 N. J. Law, 469. An examination of this case will show it to sustain the view we take. The title of the act there was "An act to prevent the adulteration and to regulate the sale of milk," Mr. Justice Reed points out that under this title only penalties for adulterating milk could be embodied in the act, while the second section of the act imposed a penalty for the production of unwholesome milk by other methods. He says: "The latter prohibition is, in my judgment, clearly outside the object of the legislation as expressed in the title." The penalty imposed by the trust company act under which the defendants were convicted, relates to the duties of the officers of a trust company conducting business under the act, and to the punishment for the violation of those duties in any of the respects provided for in the act. This does not seem to us to be within the reasoning of Shivers v. Newton, supra.

The next contention is that the defendants were officers of the Monmouth Trust & Safe Deposit Company and were organized under the act of 1885, entitled "An act for the incorporation of safe deposit and trust companies" (P. L. 1885, p. 270), and that section 17 of the act of 1899 entitled "An act concerning trust companies," under which this indictment was found, does not apply to "safe deposit and trust companies," created under the act of 1885. In 1899 there was a revision of all the acts relative to trust and safe deposit companies, and separate statutes were passed for the organization of each and all trust companies and safe deposit company acts, and acts for the creation of safe deposit and trust companies were repealed. P. L. 1899, p. 450, P. L. 1899, p. 468; P. L. 1899, p. 474. The act of 1885 is expressly repealed by section 4 of the statute last cited. By section 8 of the repealing act, all vested rights of the companies organized under the acts repealed, are reserved with the right in the companies to continue to enjoy the rights and advantages which they then enjoyed (P. L. 1899, p. 475); and by section 30 of the trust company revision of 1899, it is expressly enacted that "the provisions of this act shall be applicable to and the words 'trust companies' when used in this act, shall be construed to include all trust companies, and all safe deposit and trust companies, heretofore organized under the laws of this state, whether by special charter or under general act or otherwise, as well as corporations hereafter organized under this act." This section also reserves to trust and safe deposit companies the rights and privileges they now possess. It is within the power of the Legislature, in passing a general act, to reserve and preserve rights and privileges existing in any class of corporations brought under the provisions of a general law. Such an act is not open to the objection of being special. Dickinson v. Board of Freeholders, (N. J. Err. & App.) 60 Atl. 220. Nor, to the contention that such a reservation is not embraced within the title of the act. Limitations upon a power granted by an act, or the reservation of powers existing in certain corporations brought under the act, In addition to those granted, are proper subject-matters to be embodied in a statute, where the powers relate to the class concerning which the legislation is enacted. All such provisions are germane to the subject-matter of the legislation embraced within the statute. It is clearly within the right of the Legislature, while reserving powers...