The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1895-11-14
WRIT REFUSED.
Certiorari of Temporary
Water Supply Contract
Unsuccessful.
JUSTICE GARRIsoN's OPINION
The Court Held That No substan-
tial Grievance Had Been Shown
By the Petitioner.
Specfal to the .Ierscu GIN Nenrs.

SpectuG 10 tHe jersey Ctty Ifcu".
TRENTON, Nov. IA, 1S95.--Justice CARR
son yesterday filed an opinion in the Supreme
Court refusing to grant a writ OF certlorari
to review the action of the municipal au-
thorities of Jersey City, in awarding to the
East Jersey Water Company a contract Tor
a temporary supply of water. The matter
was argued before the court on Tuesday.
The full text of the opinion follows
This is an application by two resident tax
payers of Jersey City for a writ of certiorar1.
The object of the writ is to remove into this
court the action OF the municipal authorities
which resulted in the awarding OF a con-
contract with the East Jersey Water Com
pany for a temporary supply of water for
Jersey City, in order that the said contract
may be here set aside.
WHAT MUST BE SHOWN.
In order that this writ be allowed it must
be shown that some injury to the prosecu-
tors may be the natural result of the muni-
cipal action in question. Injury in its legal
sense must be the reasonable OF possible re-
suit of the contract. The only injury in this
sense shown by the prosecutors is that the
contract for the temporary supply was
awarded to the East Jersey Water Com
pany without any formal and specific adj
vertisement for bidders thereto.
The case is free from any suggestion OF
fraud, attempted wrong doing or over-reach-
ing. Furthermore, it deals with the perform
ance of a public duty of the utmost import
ance to sanitation, and with a phase OF that
duty in which urgency and temporary relief
are of the essence. Whether in the emer-
gency presented a temporary supplyof water
should be afforded is a legislative question
not renewable here; that such immediate
relief can be obtained only from a system OF
water supply already constructed and IN
operation is certain. 1t is equally indisput-
able that there is but one such system.
NO GRIEVANCE SHOWN.
The question, therefore, presented is not
whether it is necessary for the city to adver-
tise for proposals for rhat which can be OBJ
tanned only by contract with the East Jersey
Water Company. but whether having in good
faith made an agreement for temporary re-
lief from the only available source without
advertising for, bidders, a general taxpayer,
whose only claim to legal inquiry is the omis-
sion of SUCH advertisement mas anything OF
substance to htigate.
Parties mayseek to redress private wrongs,
however f~anciful, without the permission of
the court, but that the honest administration
of public duties should not be open to embar-
rassment at every turn at the suit OF private
litigants unless it appears that some public
or private right may be set at naught or
jeopardized. Whether such is the case must
rest in sound judicial Judgment. In the
present case and in the exercise of this dis
erection, we are of the opinion that these pri-
vate prosecutors have shown no substantial
grievance tor edress which the action of their
public trustees should drawn into litigation.