Case Name: The State against Tunis G. Vanderveer
Court: New Jersey Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: New Jersey
Decision Date: 1823-05
Citations: 7 N.J.L. 38
Docket Number: 
Parties: The State against Tunis G. Vanderveer.
Judges: 
Reporter: New Jersey Law Reports
Volume: 7
Pages: 46–47

Head Matter:
The State against Tunis G. Vanderveer.
ON CEKTIOEABI.
A certiorari, directed to surveyors of the highway to bring up their proceedings, cannot be allowed by a judge at chambers: but it must be applied for at bar.
Wall, moved to quash this certiorari, because the allocatur had been made by a judge at chambers. He said, that in all cases where certioraris were directed to tribunals which were of an extraordinary and special character, in contradistinction to the ordinary and common courts, they could be allowed only at bar, and relied upon the case of Ludlow v. Executors of Ludlow, (1 South. 387, 392.) as governing this.
R. StocHon, contra,
said he never understood the rule to go the length contended for by the adverse counsel. Eor twenty years after the Revolution, the practice in every case was, for the judge to make the allocatur at chambers; and though the case cited from Southard might establish a different general rule, he did not think that it disrobed the judge of the power of granting a certiorari under special and pressing circumstances, *by this side bar rule. The words, “commissioners to lay out roads,” made use of in the case cited, did not mean the mere common case of applying to the court to appoint surveyors to lay out roads. It must mean commissioners specially appointed as such, by some particular law: as therefore a certiorari to the surveyors was not embraced in the words of the case cited, and as the ancient practice had been the other way, he thought the allocatur by the judge at chambers was sufficient.

Opinion:
Per Curiam.
We are of opinion, that the case in Southard extends to surveyors; and the great reason why certio raris of this kind could not be allowed at chambers, was, that public proceedings should not be interrupted by the allocatur of a single j udge.
Ford J.
I am satisfied that the allocatur was not within the rule laid down in Southard. How far that rule ought to be modified, is another question.
EosselIj J.
had no objection to reconsider that rule, and modify it if thought advisable.
Certiorari quashed.