Case Name: THE STATE, EDWARD EVANS ET AL., PROSECUTORS, v. THE INHABITANTS OF THE TOWNSHIP OF NORTH BERGEN
Court: New Jersey Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: New Jersey
Decision Date: 1877-06
Citations: 39 N.J.L. 456
Docket Number: 
Parties: THE STATE, EDWARD EVANS ET AL., PROSECUTORS, v. THE INHABITANTS OF THE TOWNSHIP OF NORTH BERGEN.
Judges: 
Reporter: New Jersey Law Reports
Volume: 39
Pages: 456–457

Head Matter:
THE STATE, EDWARD EVANS ET AL., PROSECUTORS, v. THE INHABITANTS OF THE TOWNSHIP OF NORTH BERGEN.
■Where an act provided that no certiorari to remove an assessment should be allowed after thirty days have elapsed from the confirmation of the assessment, the limitation will not begin to run if the confirmation has no legal existence for the want of notice of filing of the report, and of the convening of the township committee to consider objections touching the assessment.
Oh certiorari.
Argued at February Term, 1877, before Justices Woodhull, Van Syckel and Souddeii.
For the prosecutors, J. Flemming.
For the defendant, J: Q. Fetsaon.

Opinion:
The opinion of the court was delivered by
M oodiiull, J.
The matter to be determined in this case is the validity of an assessment for the grading, &c., of the -old county road in the township of North Bergen, under the act of March 18th, 1870. Lawn, 1870, p. 1312.
The proceedings returned to us fail to show any substantial compliance with the provisions óf that act in the following essential particulars:
1. The commissioners by whom the assessment was made-were not, so far as appears, disinterested freeholders and residents of the township.
2. They did not respectively take and file the oath prescribed by the act, viz., that they had no interest in said improvement, and did not own any property .along the line-thereof.
3. The assessment, so far as appears, was in excess of the-benefits.
4. The commissioners did not examine into the whole matter of their charge, and report in writing what real estate, fronting upon said improvement, ought to be assessed, and what proportion of the entire expense thereof should be assessed to each separate parcel or lot of land.
5. It does not appear that the township clerk, after the-filing of the commissioners' report, gave notice, for at least ten- days, stating that the same had been duly filed, and when and where the township committee would convene to consider-objections in writing touching said assessment.
6. The attempted confirmation of the assessment, without such notice having been previously given, was illegal and void.
The objection that the writ in this case was not allowed within the time limited by the act, cannot prevail.
Section 7 provides "that after thirty days have elapsed from the date of confirmation named in the preceding section,, no certiorari may be allowed," &c. But the confirmation named in the preceding section having- never had any legal existence, for want of the notice referred to above, it follows, that the prescribed limitation has not yet commenced to run.
The writ must therefore be retained, and, for the reasons indicated above, the assessment-, with all proceedings under it, must, as to the prosecutors, be set aside, with costs.