Manufacturers Land & Improvement Co. v. City of Camden
Manufacturers Land & Improvement Co. v. City of Camden
Opinion of the Court
The opinion of the court was delivered by
The plaintiff in error prosecuted a writ of certiorari in the Supreme Court for the purpose of testing the validity of an ordinance of the city of Camden providing for the repaving of a portion of one of the streets of that municipality, and of an amendment to that ordinance; and for the further purpose of reviewing an assessment laid against its property abutting on that street for the benefits which accrued to it by the repaving. The Supreme Court, upon a consideration of the merits, reached the conclusion that the ordinance and its amendment were each of them valid, the authority to pass them having been conferred upon the city by an act of the legislature approved June 13th, 1898, and entitled “An act to authorize the improvement of streets and highways in cities of this state, and to provide for the payment of the expense of the same.” Pamph. L., p. 466. They further considered that the assessment laid upon the property of the prose
So far as the matters dealt with by the Supreme Court, in its opinion, are concerned, they may be disposed of by saying that this court fully concurs in the views expressed therein by the writer of the opinion, Mr. Justice Voorhees.
Certain questions are presented, however, by the assignments of error submitted to this court which are not dealt with in the opinion below. One of them challenges the validity of the act of 1898 upon the ground that it violates article 4, section 7, placiium 3 of the state constitution, which reads as follows: “To avoid improper influences which might result from intermixing in one and the same act such things as have no proper relation to each other, every law shall embrace but one object, and that shall be expressed in the title.” This same contention was made before the Supreme Court, and if it is sound the conclusions reached by the court upon the merits are erroneous. The point made is that the title of the act of 1898 fails to express a purpose to impose any part of the cost of the improvement provided by it upon adjacent property. The criticism fails to differentiate between the object of a statute and the means by which that object shall be carried into effect. The former is required to be expressed in the title, the latter is not. As was pithily said by Mr. Justice Garrison in Moore v. Burdett, 33 Vroom 164, the constitutional mandate requires that the title of an act shall be a label, not an index. The object of the act under consideration is to improve the public streets of our cities, and to provide for the payment of the expense incurred thereby. This is clearly expressed in the title. The methods to be adopted in making the improvements, and the means by which the moneys shall be raised to pay for them, are mere machinery provided for the accomplishment of the legislative purpose. The statute does not violate the constitutional provision appealed to.
So far as the refusal to grant a rehearing was concerned, the matter was one within the discretion of the Supreme Court and is not a subject of review here.
No error being shown in the judgment under review it will be affirmed.
For affirmance—-The Oiiakcellor, Chief Justice, Swayze, Reed, Treychabd, Parker, Miyturm, Bogert, Yrbdehbuegh, Vroom, Cokgdoy, JJ. 11.
For reversal—None.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- MANUFACTURERS LAND AND IMPROVEMENT COMPANY v. CITY OF CAMDEN
- Status
- Published