Van Vane v. Inhabitants of Centre
Van Vane v. Inhabitants of Centre
Opinion of the Court
The opinion of the court was delivered by
The plaintiff below recovered verdict and judgment for damages happening to his person and property through the plunging, because of fright, of a horse he was driving along a public road in the township of Centre, in the county of Camden, into an unguarded ditch adjoining the driveway and about eight feet below it.
Without express statutory imposition liability for this injury could not legally be placed on the township. Condict v. Jersey City, 17 Vroom 157; Jewell v. Monmouth, 23 Id. 553, and cases cited.
The statute relied on is a supplement to the Road act of 1846, which was approved March 23d, 1859. Pamph. L., p. 626; Gen. Stat., p. 2840.
By the twentieth section of that statute it was enacted as follows:
“If any damage shall happen to any person or persons, his, her or their team, carriage or-other property, by means •of the insufficiency or want of repairs of any public road in any of the townships of this state, the person or persons sustaining such damage shall have the right to recover the same, with costs, in an action * * * against such township.” By the last section it was enacted that the provisions of the act should not apply in certain counties, of which Camden is not one.
At the trial, on motion to nonsuit, it was contended that the case did not fall within the terms of the statute, and that the place of the accident was really an approach to a bridge, and the liability, if any, that of the county. We do not find it necessary to consider these contentions. Another ground of the motion was unquestionably well taken, and, under the exception sealed on refusal of the nonsuit, the judgment must be reversed for a reason that is fatal to the action.
The Road act of 1846 was expressly repealed in the revision of 1874. Gen. Stat., p. 3775, pl. 92: The revised act, found in Gen. Stat., p. 2803, in its ninety-ninth section, provides-that nothing in the act contained shall in anywise repeal, alter- or affect the above-cited supplement of 1859, “or the supplements thereto,” but that such act “and its supplements” shall have the same force and effect as if it and they had been-, passed after the passage of the revised act and it and they had been supplements thereto. It is argued for the defendant in error that as the act of 1860 is not entitled as a supplement to the act of 1859, it is not saved; and that, if it did not fall with the act of 1846, it was repealed by implication by the enactment of the new law covering the whole-subject of roads. It was not expressly repealed, and, so far as the question of municipal liability is concerned, the revised act, like the act of 1846, is silent. The repeal of a statute-does not necessarily repeal its supplements. Whether they stand or fall depends on their character, as dependent or independent enactments. Several statutes, though in form supplements to the act of 1846, were considered by the compilers of the general statutes as still in force. Gen. Stat., pp. 2840, 2846.
Clearly it was not the legislative intent to preserve the enactment of 1859, except as subsequently modified.
The Supreme Court, in 1884, declared this view with respect to the same restricting supplement as applicable to the county of Bergen, although the exact point was perhaps not presented. Dupuy v. Township of Union, 17 Vroom 269. We approve that decision, which for nearly twenty years has stood unquestioned.
The judgment under review must be reversed.
For affirmance — None.
For reversal — The Chancellor, Chief Justice, Van Syckel, Dixon, Collins, Fort, Garretson, Hendrickson, Pitney, Bogert, Krueger, Adams, Vredenburgh, Voorhees, Vroom. 15.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.