Case Name: TREANOR et al. v. EICHHORN
Court: New York Supreme Court, General Term
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1893-12-01
Citations: 26 N.Y.S. 314
Docket Number: 
Parties: TREANOR et al. v. EICHHORN.
Judges: 
Reporter: West's New York Supplement
Volume: 26
Pages: 314–314

Head Matter:
(74 Hun, 58.)
TREANOR et al. v. EICHHORN.
(Supreme Court, General Term, Second Department.
December 1, 1893.)
Constitutional Law—Local Laws.
Laws 1892, c. 493, providing for the construction of highways running through two or more towns of the same county, but only applying (section 8) to counties adjoining cities of one million or more inhabitants, is not, because of its present limited application, a local act, within Const, art. 3, § 18, forbidding such acts in relation to highways.
Agreed case, submitted without action by James J. Treanor, John Besson, and John G. Peene, commissioners in the matter of the extension of Warburton avenue, against Charles F. Eichhorn, to test the validity of certain bonds issued by the town of Greenburgh. Judgment for plaintiffs.
Argued before BARNARD, P. J., and DYKMAN and PRATT, JJ.
Joseph F. Day, for plaintiffs.
William A. Jaycox, for defendant.

Opinion:
BARNARD, P. J.
Chapter 493, Laws 1892, is not a local or private act. It is, by its terms, made applicable to the entire state where the conditions exist. The procedure to lay out roads partly in one town and partly in another was an inconvenient and uncertain method. The commissioners of highways of each town laid out the part in the town to meet a road actually laid out through the adjoining town, or proposed to be laid out therein. There were-separate appeals from each order, with a possible conflict in the result of the separate appeals. The limitation of the act to continue-. where there is an adjoining city of one million of inhabitants or over does not make the act, otherwise general, a local act. It still applies to the whole state where any county in it adjoins so-large a city. People v. Squire, 107 N. Y. 593, 14 N. E. 820. An act embracing all things of a certain class is a general, and not a local,, act, although by reason of a limitation based on population only a single locality can receive its benefits. Ferguson v. Ross, 126 N. Y. 549, 27 N. E. 954; In re New York El. R. Co., 70 N. Y. 328. Under these cases the act in question does not conflict with section 18, art. 3, of the constitution of the state, which prohibits the passage of a local act laying out roads. Judgment should therefore be given for the plaintiffs upon the submitted case. All concur.