State v. Weehawken Tp.
| Decision Date | 12 November 1900 |
| Citation | 47 A. 446,65 N.J.L. 490 |
| Parties | STATE (BOHAN, Prosecutor) v. WEEHAWKEN TP. |
| Court | New Jersey Supreme Court |
(Syllabus by the Court)
Certiorari by the state, on the prosecution of Michael Bohan, against the township of Weehawken, to review a resolution passed by such township. Eight other writs were consolidated in the trial of the cause. Resolution set aside.
Argued June term, 1900, before DIXON, GARRISON, and COLLINS, JJ.
Charles C. Black, for prosecutors.
Henry M. Nutzhorn, for defendant.
GARRISON, J. Nine writs of certiorari attacking the same resolution were consolidated by an order duly made in this cause. These consolidated causes raise the single question whether the township committee of the township of Weehawken, on the 24th day of March, 1900, could, by resolution, lawfully appoint certain persons other than the prosecutors as members of the police force of the township.
The revision of the township act was approved March 24, 1899, and went into effect upon February 25, 1900. The prosecutors, with the exception of Oeder, who is a taxpayer, were appointed as members of the police department of the township upon March 5, 1900, by the same ordinance that established a police department in said township.
Upon March 24, 1900, the new township committee, by its resolution, appointed a township police force, officers and men, without repealing the existing ordinance, one of whose provisions was a tenure of office for those appointed under it until removed for cause after a hearing.
This resolution, the prosecutors say, is invalid upon grounds that will be severally considered:
First. Because, under the act of 1899, the control of the police force must be by ordinance, and hence cannot be filled by resolution.
This, however, is manifestly not so, inasmuch as the statute referred to, while providing for "the regulation, control, and management of a police force" by the township committee by ordinance, expressly provides that "for that purpose they may, by resolution, appoint such members and officers of such force as they may deem necessary." P. L. 1899, p. 395, § 57.
Second. Because the said resolution is in violation of the charter of Weehawken (P. L. 1868, p. 62).
To this there are several efficient replies,— as, for instance, that the charter expressly authorizes the appointment to be by resolution; that the appointment was not made under the charter, but under the act of 1899; and that the charter is, in this respect, repealed by the act of 1899 by necessary implication.
Third. Because the said resolution violates the tenure of office secured to the prosecutors by the statute of 1897 (P. L. 1897, p. 128).
This statute is expressly repealed by the act of 1899. (See page 426.) Moreover, the title of the act to which it is a supplement is "An act respecting police departments in cities, and regulating the tenure and term of officers and men employed in said departments." P. L. 1897, p. 128.
The force of the enacting clause of this act to extend its provisions beyond the limitations of the title is obviously ineffectual.
And, fourth, and last. Because, by virtue of the ordinance of the township committee establishing the police department by which the prosecutors were appointed, they held their positions until removed for cause, and after a hearing.
There is no question that the ordinance contained such a provision, and that at the time of the passage of the resolution under review it remained unrepealed. The question of decisive importance is whether this ordinance, by such a tenure of office feature, bound the subsequent township committee so that it could not vacate and fill the positions at its pleasure, as was done under the sanction of this court in the recent case of Mathis v. Rose (N. J. Sup.) 44 Atl. 875.
The cases of Greene v. Freeholders, 44 N. J. Law, 388, and Adams v. Haines,...
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