Case Name: The State against The Township Committees of the Townships of Chester and Evesham, in the County of Burlington
Court: New Jersey Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: New Jersey
Decision Date: 1829-02
Citations: 10 N.J.L. 346
Docket Number: 
Parties: The State against The Township Committees of the Townships of Chester and Evesham, in the County of Burlington.
Judges: 
Reporter: New Jersey Law Reports
Volume: 10
Pages: 346–347

Head Matter:
The State against The Township Committees of the Townships of Chester and Evesham, in the County of Burlington.
MANDAMUS.
One and the same writ of mandamus cannot be directed to the township, committees of two several townships, to compel them to proceed,to do their duty in a matter of road.
This was a writ of mandamus directed to the township committees of the townships of Chester and Evesham, in the county of Burlington, reciting, “That whereas J. TI. and others, (naming them) surveyors of the highways of the county of Burlington, on the second day of March, A. D. 1825, laid out a certain road of three rods wide in the said townships of Chester and Evesham; nevertheless that the said township committees had refused and neglected to assign and appoint, in writing, to some one or more of the overseers of the highways in the said townships the road aforesaid thus laid out, for opening, clearing out, working, amendment and repair agreeably to the provision of the statute in such case made and'provided, therefore commanding and strictly enjoining the said township committees, immediately upon the receipt of the said writ, to assign and appoint, in writing, to some one or more of the overseers of the highways of the said townships, their several limits and divisions of the said road for opening, clearing out, making, amendment and repair, or shew cause to the 'contrary.”
Sloan, for the defendants,
moved to quash this writ, and contended, that the same writ could not be directed to the township committees of two several townships. But that there should be a separate writ to each township.
Hamilton, contra.

Opinion:
By the Court.
The duties and liabilities of the townships and their officers in the opening, making and repair of roads are entirely distinct. Each township acts for itself and not in connection with any other. Rev. Laws 621. Chitty says, where an highway running through several parishes is out of repair, a joint indictment is not sustainable. 3 Chit. Cr. Law, 567. The committees of both townships ought not, in the present case, to have been included in the same writ.
Let the mandamus be quashed.