Opinion ID: 1956183
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: the statute as properly construed

Text: It goes without saying that the wisdom, good sense, policy and prudence (or otherwise) of a statute are matters within the province of the Legislature and not of the Court. In Avant v. Clifford, 67 N.J. 496, 517 (1975), we cited several decisions to that effect, only recently reemphasized by us in Vornado, Inc. v. Hyland, 77 N.J. 347 (1978). We take this occasion again to foreswear any illusion that this Court, or any court, sits as a superlegislature to determine the wisdom, need or propriety of statutory law. Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 482, 85 S.Ct. 1678, 1680, 14 L.Ed. 510, 513 (1965); Grand Union Co. v. Sills, 43 N.J. 390, 403 (1964). We repeat as has been said before: [C]ourts have confined themselves to measuring executive and legislative action (as their sworn duty to uphold the Constitution requires them to do) only on a constitutional and not a politic basis, never concerning themselves with the wisdom, justification or even the sense or honesty of purpose of the act of the other branch of government. That is the business of the other branch. It is the Constitution that is the business of the courts. [ Vreeland v. Byrne, 72 N.J. 292, 322-23 (1977) (Hughes, C.J., dissenting) (footnote omitted)]. It is not to be supposed, then, that in construing a statute and searching for the legislative intent in enacting it, in aid of that process of construction, the court injects itself into that legislative sphere. Its interpretive role is quite different, and is a matter of judicial obligation. And while legislative silence in failing to confirm or overrule or clarify a statute which has been subjected to a particular judicial interpretation is significant, it is not conclusive, and insofar as McGrath would consider it so, we overrule it. As stated in a similar context in People v. Daniels, 71 Cal. 2d 1119, 80 Cal. Rptr. 897, 459 P. 2d 225 (Sup. Ct. 1969) ( en banc ): [W]hile the Legislature may thus choose to remain silent, we may not. It continues to be our duty to decide each case that comes before us; in so doing, we must apply every statute in the case according to our best understanding of the legislative intent; and in the absence of further guidance by the Legislature, we should not hesitate to reconsider our prior construction of that intent whenever such a course is dictated by the teachings of time and experience.    [T]he rule of deference to legislative judgment applies to the statute as interpreted by this court. It is this judicial interpretation, and not the wisdom of the statute itself, that is here in issue; and if we conclude we should now revise that interpretation, we have both the power and the duty to do so.    Respect for the role of the judiciary in our tripartite system of government demands no less. [71 Cal. 2d at 1128, 80 Cal. Rptr. at 902, 459 P. 2d at 230]. It is true that there is ample precedent in New Jersey to support the proposition that, where a statute has been judicially construed, the failure of the Legislature to subsequently act thereon evidences legislative acquiescence in the construction given the statute. See, e.g., Lemke v. Bailey, 41 N.J. 295, 301 (1963); Egan v. Erie R.R. Co., 29 N.J. 243, 250 (1959); Caputo v. The Best Foods, Inc., 17 N.J. 259, 267 (1955); Miller v. Board of Chosen Freeholders, 10 N.J. 398, 413 (1952). This line of precedent would suggest that the Legislature intended that mitigation not be considered in awarding back pay under the statute. However, legislative inaction has also been referred to as a weak reed upon which to lean and a poor beacon to rely on. 2A Sutherland, Statutory Construction, § 49.10 at 261 (4th ed. 1973). Accordingly, such inaction may mean nothing more than that the Legislature did not act. See Donaldson v. North Wildwood Bd. of Educ., 65 N.J. 236, 240-41 & n.  (1974). As stated in another context by Chief Justice Weintraub in Schmoll v. Creecy, 54 N.J. 194, 203 (1969):    the question as to the intent of the Legislature that adopted the wrongful death statute is a judicial question as to which neither the action nor inaction of a subsequent Legislature can be dispositive. Based on this latter view, our Court has recently stated that [t]he intent expressed in [a statute] is a judicial question with respect to which the inaction of subsequent legislatures is not dispositive. State v. Sands, 76 N.J. 127, 137-38 n. 1 (1978). This approach has been taken by the California Supreme Court in People v. Daniels, supra , which held that, due to the passage of time and the rise of new ideas, two earlier decisions which dealt with kidnapping should be overruled despite the fact that, subsequent to those decisions, the California Legislature had not seen fit to act on their content. The court said: Legislative silence after a court has construed a statute gives rise at most to an arguable inference of acquiescence or passive approval, the weaknesses of which have been exposed elsewhere. But something more than mere silence should be required before that acquiescence is elevated into a species of implied legislation such as to bar the court from reexamining its own premises. We are not here faced with a situation in which the Legislature has adopted an established judicial interpretation by repeated reenactment of a statute. [71 Cal. 2d at 1127-28, 80 Cal. Rptr. at 901-02, 459 P. 2d at 229-30 (quoting from Muskopf v. Corning Hosp. Dist., 55 Cal. 2d 211, 218, 11 Cal. Rptr. 89, 93, 359 P. 2d 457, 461 (Sup. Ct. 1961 ( en banc ) (emphasis in original) (footnote omitted))]. Although State v. Sands and People v. Daniels support a reevaluation of the legislative intent expressed in N.J.S.A. 40A:9-172, the last sentence quoted above from Daniels raises the question of whether the enactment of R.S. 40: 46-34 (at issue in McGrath, supra ) into Title 40A in 1971 evidences legislative adoption of McGrath. We do not think this is necessarily so because Title 40A represents only a revision and recodification of old Title 40. N.J.S.A. 40A:9-172 is an almost identical repetition of N.J.S.A. 40:46-34 and such repetition is present elsewhere in Chapter 9 of Title 40A. We accordingly believe that the enactment of N.J.S.A. 40A:9-172 represents no more than a mechanical codification to which little significance should be attached. We are of opinion, then, that the statutory interpretation of McGrath is not enshrined by subsequent legislative inaction and that the Court is entirely free to reexamine the validity of that earlier interpretation. Upon such reexamination we are unable to agree with the absolute nature of D'Elia's description of the statutory words as having such clarity they can have but one meaning, nor indeed with our own Court's view of them in McGrath, supra, as unequivocal language. They certainly could have been more clear and less equivocal if, for instance, the Legislature had specified (as it is still free to do) that the mandated right of recovery of salary was to be without mitigation by other earnings derived in the interim period, or words to that effect. Such truly clear and unequivocal language would have settled the issue subject to the constitutional scrutiny suggested by Judge Allcorn's dissent. We would doubt that the word salary as viewed in McGrath has a legislative connotation distinguished, say, from the Legislature's use of the word compensation in N.J.S.A. 18A:6-30, dealing with school employees and their right to recover compensation when unlawfully dismissed. That statute was held to contemplate mitigation as a factor although it contained no facial reference thereto. Mullen v. Board of Educ., 81 N.J. Super. 151 (App. Div. 1963). Similarly, municipal employees in the classified service were held by this Court to be subject to Civil Service statutes, rather than N.J.S.A. 40:46-34 (now N.J.S.A. 40A:9-172), Telesnick v. Newark, 63 N.J. 221 (1973); Mason v. Civil Service Comm'n, 51 N.J. 115 (1968), and therefore subject to the mitigation rule. Judge Larner cited these cases in his opinion below as indicating the beginning attrition of the rule of McGrath because of the inequitable rigors of full salary payment without mitigation as previously thought to be mandated by the instant statute. Anent the true intent of the Legislature, unexpressed in plain words, but thought to derive from the use of the word salary, we have no sure indication, then, that such was intended in a sense other than was compensation, as otherwise legislated in like context ( N.J.S.A. 18A:6-30), and as understood and applied in Mullen, supra, as we have pointed out. In many respects the words seem synonymous, or nearly so. Black's Law Dictionary (rev. 4th ed. 1968) defines salary as a reward or recompense for services performed. Id. at 1503. Compensation, by the same token, is defined in part as follows: recompense or reward for some    service, especially when it is given by statute and as [t]he remuneration or wages given to an employee or, especially, to an officer. Salary, pay, or emolument. Id. at 354. And if the terms are not necessarily or precisely synonymous, courts have held them to be equivalent in situations involving the payment of public funds to governmental workers. See, e.g., Treu v. Kirkwood, 42 Cal. 2d 602, 609, 268 P. 2d 482, 486 (Sup. Ct. 1954) ( en banc ) (terms salary and compensation used in related statutory provisions are synonymous); Cummings v. Smith, 368 Ill. 94, 99-100, 13 N.E. 2d 69, 72 (Sup. Ct. 1937) (words compensation and salary employed in state constitution are synonymous); State ex rel. Artmayer v. Board of Trustees, 43 Ohio St. 2d 62, 63-64, 330 N.E. 2d 684, 685 (Sup. Ct. 1975) (terms salary and compensation as used in state constitution are synonymous). A strict construction of a statute in derogation of the common law requires that the legislative intent be clearly and plainly expressed in order to effectuate a change. E.g., Blackman v. Iles, 4 N.J. 82, 89 (1950). In Magierowski v. Buckley, 39 N.J. Super. 534, 546 (App. Div. 1956), the court listed four factors to consider in construing such a statute: (1) what was the common law prior to enacting the statute, (2) what was the mischief for which the common law did not provide, (3) what was the remedy intended by the Legislature and (4) what was the purpose of the remedy? The statement in the original printing of the bill which became L. 1918, c. 139, read: This is a bill to protect the employees and officers of municipalities who may be illegally dismissed from their employment. It is now possible under the law to illegally dismiss a man, and when the dismissal is set aside as illegal, it may happen in many instances that the individual cannot recover the salary that is rightfully his because of the law and the decisions in this state. In a word, the Civil Service Law does not give the protection that it ought to give. This bill would remedy that evil and would protect the individual. What was the evil (mischief, Magierowski, supra ) referred to, if not the harsh common law rule (in New Jersey) foreclosing officers, vis-a-vis employees, from any recovery at all for the period of their illegal ouster? And what was the protection envisaged by the statute if not that which the common law already gave employees, vis-a-vis officers, Ross, supra ? Can it then be supposed that the Legislature intended the instant statute to embrace part protection (compensation) and part gift by the municipality of that portion of salary above the actual loss as mitigated by outside earnings? Or that it intended the statute to award part protection (compensation) and part punitive damages against the municipality, as though a legally deficient or inappropriate dismissal was necessarily wrongful, invidious or tortious and deserving of punishment at the public cost? There is an important rule of statutory construction adverted to by Judge Goldmann in Mullen, supra, to the effect that the Legislature must always be presumed to favor the public interest as against any private one. 81 N.J. Super. at 160. If this be so in fact, can there be assumed a legislative intent to award a gift or windfall to the employee, or impose a gratuitous penalty against the employer, i.e., the public? We answer these questions in the negative with a certain degree of confidence springing, in part, from a recent decision of this Court in Township of Springfield v. Pedersen, 73 N.J. 1 (1977). There Justice Mountain expressed for a unanimous court a construction of N.J.S.A. 40A:14-151, a prototype of the instant statute, applying to municipal police officers. A police officer was dismissed at a time when he was on mandatory sick leave and not receiving his regular salary. Rather, he was being paid disability benefits in lieu of salary under an insurance plan covering members of the police department. Upon his judicial vindication, it was ordered by a court that he receive his full salary, not taking into consideration the in lieu substitution therefor mentioned. This judgment was reversed, for the reasons expressed by Justice Mountain, which we here reaffirm, and which read as follows: [W]e think that the legislative purpose sought to be achieved by these enactments was to change the harsh rule of the common law which had denied recovery to blameless municipal officials who had been improperly suspended or dismissed from office. We find it hard to believe that the Legislature entertained the further purpose of providing a windfall recovery to such officials to be forthcoming from public funds. We think the statute means, and should be construed to say, that where a municipal official has been denied compensation because of a suspension or dismissal judicially determined to have been illegal, he will become entitled to receive from the municipality exactly the amount of remuneration    as he would have received but for the improper conduct on the part of his employer. We think such an interpretation both fulfills the legislative desire to abrogate the common law rule, in fairness to municipal officials who have been improperly treated, and at the same time gives due concern to the need  often legislatively expressed  to safeguard and protect public funds. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Appellate Division and remand the case to the trial court to determine what amount of compensation, whether in the form of insurance payments, salary, increases in salary or other employee benefits would have been received by defendant during the period of his improper suspension and dismissal, had such improper act not occurred. [73 N.J. at 7]. In lieu of salary insurance benefits provided by the municipality are not unlike outside earnings (as here) in at least one respect  they reduce the net loss or damage to the employee, which the statute enacted for his protection was manifestly intended to redress.