Case Name: In re ELECTORS OF TOWN OF NEWBURGH, ORANGE COUNTY
Court: New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1904-10-14
Citations: 89 N.Y.S. 1065
Docket Number: 
Parties: In re ELECTORS OF TOWN OF NEWBURGH, ORANGE COUNTY.
Judges: 
Reporter: West's New York Supplement
Volume: 89
Pages: 1065–1067

Head Matter:
In re ELECTORS OF TOWN OF NEWBURGH, ORANGE COUNTY.
(Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Second Department.
October 14, 1904.)
1. Liquor Tax—Local Option Questions—Submission—Objections—Supreme Court—Jurisdiction—Statutes.
Election Law, §§ 56, 65 (Laws 1896, pp. 922, 930, c. 909), providing for the printing of ballots, selection of devices, etc., and declaring that a written objection to any certificate of nomination may be filed, etc., and the questions raised shall be heard and determined by the Supreme Court, or a justice thereof within the judicial district, or any county judge within his county, etc., has no application to the submission of local option questions under the liquor tax law, and hence the Supreme Court has no jurisdiction to pass on the sufficiency of a petition to restrain a town clerk from printing ballots for the submission of such questions.
Appeal from Special Term, Orange County.
Petition by the electors of the town of Newburgh, Orange county, for the submission of local option questions at the election to be held on November 3, 1903. From an order denying petitioners’ application for an order restraining the town clerk from printing ballots for the submission of such questions, objectors appeal.
Dismissed.
Argued before HIRSCHBERG, P. J., and BARTLETT, WOODWARD, JENKS/ and HOOKER, JJ.
Henry Kohl, for appellants.
J. Renwick Thompson, Jr., for respondents.

Opinion:
WILLARD BARTLETT, J,
I think we ought to dismiss this appeal, The proceeding appears to have been instituted by a petition and affidavit upon which an order was granted returnable before a Special Term of the Supreme Court, requiring the town clerk of the town of Newburgh to show cause why certain petitions filed with him relative to the submission of certain local option questions under the liquor tax law (Laws 1896, p. 45, c. 112; as amended by Laws 1897, p. 207, c. 312; Laws 1899, p. 855, c. 398; Laws 1900, p. 849, c. 367; and Laws 1901, p. 1532, c. 640) should not be declared invalid, and why the same should not be set aside, and why he should not be restrained from printing ballots for the submission of the questions aforesaid. The application was of a summary nature, and it appears to have been supposed that there was jurisdiction to entertain it either on the part of the Supreme Court or a justice thereof, under sections 56 and 65 of the Election Law (Laws 1896, pp. 922, 930, c. 909). An examination of these sections, however, shows that they have no reference whatever to petitions or other proceedings under the liquor tax law, but that they relate solely to certificates of nomination under the provisions of the election law. The attempt to bring questions concerning the local option provisions of the liquor tax law before the court by a summary proceeding under sections 56 and 65 of the Election Law appears to me to have been wholly without authority. The court below therefore possessed no jurisdiction to pass one way or the other upon the sufficiency of the petitions. It would have béen different in an injunction suit by a taxpayer to restrain action by the town clerk; but such was not the nature of this proceeding.
Inasmuch as the court at Special Term possessed no jurisdiction^ I think the proper course for this court is neither to affirm nor reverse its decision, but to dismiss the appeal.
Appeal dismissed, with $10 costs and disbursements. All concur.