Case ID: njl_40/html/0122-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Dixon, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

STATE, HART, PROSECUTOR, v. THE TOWNSHIP OF WEST ORANGE.
    1. If a power to grade streets is given to a municipal corporation, it also acquires, by implication, a power to establish the grade to which the streets are to be leveled.
    2. A power to raise money by general tax for the purposes of a street improvement, is not inconsistent with a power to raise money by special assessment for the same purposes.
    On application for appointment of commissioners to make a new assessment.
    Argued at November Term, 1877, before Justices Scuddee, Dixon and Reed.
    For the motion, J. W. Field.
    
    
      Contra, J. L. Blake.
    
   The opinion of the court was delivered by

Dixon, J.

An assessment for the expenses of establishing the grade of and grading Prospect avenue having been set aside, the municipality now applies, under section ten of the certiorari act, (Rev., p. 99,) for the appointment of commissioners to make a new assessment. This is opposed on the grounds—first, that the township committee had no-power to establish a grade; and, second, that the expenses of such improvements were to be raised, not by special assessment, but by general tax.

We think that neither of these positions is well taken.

The charter (Pamph. L., 1870, p. 466, § 8, ¶ 2,) expressly authorizes the township committee to order and cause any street to be graded, and the establishment of a grade is a necessary incident to this power.

Sections thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two and thirty-three of the same statute, provide for a special assessment of the expenses of such improvements, and although other enactments may give the municipality power to raise money by general tax for works of this character, the power of special assessment is not, therefore, taken away.

Whether the rule of assessment laid down by the charter accords with constitutional principles, is a question not at all discussed before us, and which, therefore, we do not decide. But as the commissioners whom we may appoint will be bound to adopt that rule, it is, perhaps, wise for the corporate authorities to consider it. If the question be a doubtful one,, the township may find a safer remedy under “An act in relation to assessments in townships,” approved March 9th,. 1877. Pamph. L., p. 227.