Case Name: OVERSEERS OF THE POOR OF THE TOWNSHIP OF BETHLEHEM v. OVERSEERS OF ALEXANDRIA
Court: New Jersey Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: New Jersey
Decision Date: 1865-11
Citations: 31 N.J.L. 366
Docket Number: 
Parties: OVERSEERS OF THE POOR OF THE TOWNSHIP OF BETHLEHEM v. OVERSEERS OF ALEXANDRIA.
Judges: 
Reporter: New Jersey Law Reports
Volume: 31
Pages: 366–367

Head Matter:
OVERSEERS OF THE POOR OF THE TOWNSHIP OF BETHLEHEM v. OVERSEERS OF ALEXANDRIA.
A certiorari to a Court of Quarter Sessions in a pauper case, may be allowed by a Justice of the Supreme Court in vacation, without a recognizance.
On certiorari to the Court of Quarter Sessions of Hunter-don.
Argued before Justices Van Dyke, Elmer, and Bedle.
A. G. Richey moved to dismiss the certorari in this case on the ground, that it was improvidently allowed 'by a single justice in vacation and not in open court, and without a recognizance. G. A. Allen, for the township of Alexandria, opposed the motion.

Opinion:
The opinion of the court was delivered by
Elmer, J.
We think this case comes within the rule adopted in the case of Ludlow v. Executors of Ludlow, 1 South. 387, as one in which the writ was properly allowed by a judge in vacation. It is a case where the certiorari is in the nature of a writ of error, to 'determine the pecuniary liability of the two townships between which the litigation is, to support a poor person, and not one in which the people at large are concerned.
It was held in the case of Martin v. Hillyer, 6 Halst. 22, that no recognizance is required in the case of a certiorari to remove a judgment in forcible entry and detainer, on the ground that such a judgment is not within the purview of the fourth section of the act to regulate writs of certiorari, Nix. Dig. 93, that act applying only to public wrongs and not to those of a private nature. This case is not one in which the name of the state can be used, but is rather in the nature of a private controversy. By the provisions of the act for the settlement and relief of the poor, Nix. Dig. 644, appeals are allowed to the Court of Quarter Sessions without any security, and the case is evidently one in which security to prosecute the writ and pay the costs is not of importance, as between the inhabitants of litigant townships, who may be assumed to be of sufficient ability, to ensure the performance of the final order of the court.
The motion to dismiss is denied.
Rev., p. 98, § 7.
Rev., p. 841, § 24-27.