Case ID: njl_86/html/0592-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Stvayüe, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

LONG DOCK COMPANY, APPELLANT, v. STATE BOARD OF ASSESSORS, RESPONDENT.
    Argued July 1, 1914
    Decided November 16, 1914.
    1. Under the Railroad Tax act it is the duty of the Supreme Court upon certiorari to give relief as well in cases where the amount of the tax is excessive or insufficient as in cases where the principle upon which the assessment is made is erroneous.
    2. Where in a railroad tax case the evidence as to value is conflicting, the court properly refuses to interfere with the decision of the state board of assessors who may have decided upon the weight and value of the evidence before them in the light of their own knowledge, as jurors may and as the statute permits, but where all the evidence is for a valuation very much lower than that fixed by the board, and the board has added twenty per cent, to the valuations on which the expert witnesses were in substantial accord, there is presented a case of palpable error, which requires tlio court to set aside the assessment.
    3. A certificate by the state board of assessors is not the proper way to ascertain their knowledge of the value of railroad property ; the board as a board may certify its official findings, but not the individual knowledge of each member. The important distinction is that between evidential facts and facts inferred therefrom.
    4. The legislature, by making the knowledge of members of the state board of assessors evidential and providing for a review by the court of the amount of the tax and the excessiveness or insufficiency of the assessment, has by the necessity of the ease provided for taking of the testimony of members of the board, since there cannot be such review unless all the facts before the board are presented to the court.
    5. The hearing in a railroad tax case provided by the legislature must be a real not a sham, hearing; the taxpayer has the right to support his allegations, if need be, by proof; to determine whether there is need of proof, he must know what he has to meet; hence, lie has the right to know what knowledge the individual members of the state board of assessors had upon which to base their valuation, and for that purpose to call the members of the board as witnesses and cross-examine them as to their individual knowledge of facts, but not as to the method by which the board reached its result.
    On appeal from the Supreme Court, whose opinion is reported in 85 N. J. L. 536.
    For the appellant, Robert J. Bain (Gilbert Collins and George B. Hobart on the brief).
    For the respondent, Josiah Stryher (John W. Wescott, attorney-general, on the brief).
   The opinion of the court was delivered by

Stvayüe, J.

In view of the care taken by the legislature to secure a hearing to the railroad companies, we need not deal with the question raised at tlie argument as to the requirements of due process of Jaw under the federal constitution. The state has provided for due process of law. We have not, it is true, adopted in civil as we have in criminal cases, a constitutional guaranty, requiring that a man be confronted with witnesses against him; we have found that the legislature and the courts sufficed to protect the citizen without the constitutional guaranty. We have always had in civil cases what is essential in the right of confrontation, i. e., the right of cross-examination. Wigm., § 139-5. Without this right, a hearing is a sham.

It was suggested iu the colloquy during the effort to take testimony that the practice under the Railroad Tax act from the very beginning had been for members of the board to refuse to give the information here sought. The authority cited is advice given by counsel for the state to a member of the board on the hearing of the original case. Central Railroad Co. v. State Board of Assessors, 48 N. J. L. 1. Wo are not advised whether the inquiry in that case was directed to the method by which the board reached its result or to the knowledge of the individual members. If to the former, the authority is not in point; if to the latter, we can only say that advice of counsel for a litigant to a witness can hardly he treated as authority by a court; however eminent the counsel may be as a lawyer, the attitude and duty of an advocate are very different, and rigidly different, from the attitude and duty of a court.

The judgment must be reversed, and the record remitted to the Supreme Court for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

For affirmance — Black, J. 1.

For reversal — -The Chancellor, Chief Justice, Sway-ze, Parker, Bergen, Bogert, Vredenluugh, Williams, J J. 8.