Terrill Manor, Inc. v. Kuckel

• Decision Date: 14 February 1967
• Docket Number: No. A--864,A--864
• Citation: 226 A.2d 733,94 N.J.Super. 25
• Parties: TERRILL MANOR, INC., a corporation of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Bernard KUCKEL and Sara Kuckel, Defendants-Respondents.
• Court: New Jersey Superior Court — Appellate Division

Page 25

94 N.J.Super. 25

226 A.2d 733

TERRILL MANOR, INC., a corporation of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Bernard KUCKEL and Sara Kuckel, Defendants-Respondents.

No. A--864.

Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division.

Argued Jan. 30, 1967.

Decided Feb. 14, 1967.

James C. Orr, Newark, for appellant (Lum, Biunno & Tompkins, attorneys, Marlene Gross, Newark, on the brief).

Kent A. Losche, Hackensack, for respondents (Hein, Smith & Mooney, Hackensack, attorneys).

Before Judges CONFORD, FOLEY and LEONARD.

PER CURIAM.

Plaintiff, claiming to be defendants' landlord, brought proceedings to dispossess them in the Bergen County District Court. The tribunal, after hearing, determined that there was no landlord-tenant relationship between the parties and consequently dismissed the complaint.

The initial inquiry is whether this court has jurisdiction of the appeal. The county district court action was brought under N.J.S. 2A:18--53 et seq., N.J.S.A. Section 2A:18--59 provides:

"Proceedings had by virtue of this article not be appealable except on the ground of lack of jurisdiction. The landlord, however, shall remain liable in a civil action for unlawful proceedings under this article."

That section, adopted as part of the 1951 General revision of the procedural legislation contained in Title 2 of the Revised Statutes of 1937, including summary dispossess proceedings, and particularly R.S. 2:32--273, has been recognized as a codification of previous judicial construction of the last mentioned and earlier forms of statutory prohibition of appeals in summary dispossess cases. The effect of such construction was to preclude such appeals except for absence of jurisdiction in the court of first instance. See 18 N.J. Practice (Fulop-Kain, District and Municipal Courts), § 1568, p. 139 (1954); Opalach v. Cebulah, 2 N.J.Super. 139, 65 A.2d 67 (App.Div.1949); and see Vineland Shopping Center, Inc. v. DeMarco, 35 N.J. 459, 462, 173 A.2d 270 (1961).

Two decisions of the former Supreme Court applied the stated conception of the law to preclude attempted appeals by landlords from adverse decisions by district courts in dispossess cases. Van Vlaanderen Machine Co. v. Fox, 95 N.J.L. 40, 111 A. 687 (Sup.Ct.1920); Sbrolla v. Hess, 133 N.J.L. 71, 42 A.2d 569 (Sup.Ct.1945). These decisions have not been overruled or impugned as authority in any later reported case. Plaintiff argues, in effect, that they were not soundly decided since the policy of preclusion of appeal in the interests of expeditious determination of such litigation is not violated if appeal is allowed in cases of erroneous denial of jurisdiction by county district courts as well as of erroneous assumption of jurisdiction. However, it appears to us that the Legislature in 1951 resolved that policy question when it adopted N.J.S. 2A:18--59, N.J.S.A., which literally precludes...