Watktns v. Bd. of Chosen Freeholders of Atl. County

• Decision Date: 26 February 1906
• Citation: 73 N.J.L. 213,62 A. 1134
• Parties: WATKTNS v. BOARD OF CHOSEN FREEHOLDERS OF ATLANTIC COUNTY.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

62 A. 1134

73 N.J.L. 213

WATKTNS

v. BOARD OF CHOSEN FREEHOLDERS OF ATLANTIC COUNTY.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Feb. 26, 1906.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Action by Benjamin F. Watkins against the board of chosen freeholders of the county of Atlantic. Demurrer to declaration sustained.

Argued November term, 1905, before GUMMERE, C. J., and HENDRICKSON and PITNEY, JJ.

Herbert C. Bartlett, for plaintiff. Harry R. Coulomb and E. A. Higbee, for defendant.

PITNEY, J. The plaintiff's declaration seeks to impose upon the county of Atlantic, in its corporate capacity, a liability for the special damage that accrued to him, as is alleged, through a breach of the duty imposed upon the board of freeholders of the county by section 30 of the criminal procedure act (P. L. 1898, p. 877). That section reads as follows: "No person shall be committed to or be detained in the jail of any county for securing his appearance as a witness against any person charged with a crime of misdemeanor, except in cases punishable by imprisonment in the state prison; nor shall persons so detained be kept in the same apartment with or be provided with the same fare as persons charged with or convicted of crime, but the boards of chosen freeholders for each county shall take care that they be comfortably lodged and provided for, and no further restricted of their liberty than is necessary for such detention." It is averred that the plaintiff, having been committed to the common jail of Atlantic county as a witness in behalf of the state against a certain person charged with crime, was for several days and nights detained in the same apartment with persons who were charged with crimes, and that the plaintiff was furnished and provided with only the same fare as prisoners charged with or convicted of crime and therein detained. From other averments it is to be gathered that during his detention the plaintiff was not comfortably lodged and provided for. It is alleged that all this occurred "by reason of the failure and neglect of the defendants to see and take care that the plaintiff was provided with different food than was provided for prisoners charged with or convicted of crime, and to take care that plaintiff was comfortably lodged and provided for, and no further restricted of his liberty than was necessary for his detention." Loss of health is set up as a special damage resulting from the wrong complained of. To this declaration a demurrer is interposed, on the ground that defendant, being a municipal corporation, is not responsible, in law, for the damages alleged to have been sustained by the plaintiff by reason of the alleged neglects and omissions in the declaration mentioned.

The declaration does not aver that plaintiff's incarceration was brought about in any way by the defendants. And it is hardly necessary to mention that, under our system, the boards of freeholders are not the keepers of the jail, nor charged with the personal custody of the prisoners. By the statute (Gen. St. p. 409) the chosen freeholders in the several counties are constituted a body politic and corporate by the name of the "Board of Chosen Freeholders of the County of Atlantic" (or as the case may be),...