Twp. Comm. of Lakewood v. Township Committee of Brick

• Decision Date: 24 February 1893
• Citation: 55 N.J.L. 275,26 A. 91
• Parties: TOWNSHIP COMMITTEE OF LAKEWOOD v. TOWNSHIP COMMITTEE OF BRICK.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

26 A. 91

55 N.J.L. 275

TOWNSHIP COMMITTEE OF LAKEWOOD

v. TOWNSHIP COMMITTEE OF BRICK.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Feb. 24, 1893.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Application by the township committee of Lakewood for a rule to show cause why a mandamus should not issue, requiring the township committee of the township of Brick, in the county of Ocean, to meet With the relators, the township committee of the township of Lakewood, in said county, and to proceed to divide between said townships the property belonging to, and the debts owing by, said township of Brick, in accordance with the provisions of section 4 of "the act to create a new township in the county of Ocean, to be called the township of Lakewood," approved March 23, 1892, (Laws 1892, p. 492.) Rule discharged.

Argued November term, 1892, before VAN SYCKEL and MAGIE, JJ.

I. W. Carmichael, for relators.

William H. Vredenburgh, for defendants.

MAGIE, J. Defendants Interpose many objections to the allowance of the mandamus asked for by relators. One objection challenges the right of the legislature to pass the provisions, the performance of which relators seek to enforce by the writ. Such an objection may be considered on an application for mandamus. Pell v. Newark, 40 N. J. Law, 71. The contention of defendants is that the clauses contained in section 4 of the act in question regulate the internal affairs of the new township of Lakewood, which is claimed to have been created thereby, and also of the township of Brick, out of which the new township is carved, and that the act, so far, at least, as those clauses are concerned, is obnoxious to the constitutional prohibition against local and special legislation of that sort. That the act is not general, but local and special, is not open to question, and was conceded in argument. Some of its provisions are obviously regulations of the internal affairs of the new township. Such are those contained in section 2, section 6, and section 7 of the act. But we are only concerned with the provisions of section 4, which require the township committees of the respective townships to divide in a prescribed manner the property and debts of the township of Brick between the two townships, make the township of Lakewood liable to pay the proportion of debts allotted to it, and make it the duty of the township committee of that township to give bond to the township committee of the township of Brick for the proportion of debts so allotted to Lakewood. In my judgment, these provisions are plainly regulations of the internal affairs of both townships. They deprive the old township of part of its property. They substitute for the right to tax property in the territory included in the new township, for the payment of outstanding liabilities, the bond of the new township. They require the latter township to enter into such an obligation, and such a requirement doubtless carries with it both the power and duty to lay taxes to meet such obligation, which seem intended to be expressly enacted by section 5.

Shortly after the adoption of the constitutional amendments which introduced into the fundamental law the prohibition against local and special legislation regulating the internal affairs of municipalities, an act of the legislature, which altered the dividing lines of the wards of a city, was attacked as being within that prohibition. In disposing of the question in this court the opinion was expressed that, notwithstanding the prohibition, the legislature might, by special laws, erect...