In Re Freygang
GOLDMANN, S.J.A.D.
This case comes before the court on an application under
A major portion of the applicants’ brief and argument is devoted to an exposition of substantive as well as technical deficiencies in the passage of the act. We note, preliminarily, the limited nature of this proceeding. The statute invoked by the applicants,
(1) The act embraces more than one object, and those objects are not expressed in its title, contrary to
(2) The act includes matter not properly a part of a special or local law, contrary to
(3) The act improperly revives a prior law (the State Rent Control Act of 1953,
In order better to understand the statute under consideration, a brief summary of rent control enactments since the expiration of federal controls on July 31, 1953 is indicated. Deeming it imperative that there be state rent control when the federal act expired, the Legislature, in view of the continuing housing shortage in certain areas, enacted the State Rent Control Act of 1953, L. 1953, c. 216. That law provided that rent control was to be operative in any municipality whose governing body adopted a resolution reciting that a housing space shortage existed and rent control was required for the protection, safety, health and general welfare of the inhabitants. Section 28 (
As the date for the expiration of state rent control approached in 1956, the governing bodies of some 35 municipalities, convinced that a housing emergency still existed in their respective areas, became very much concerned over the possible effects of the lifting of controls. They therefore (pursuant to
“Upon petition by the governing body of any municipal corporation formed for local government, or of any county, and by vote of two-thirds of all the members of each house, the Legislature may pass private, special or local laws regulating the internal affairs of the municipality or county. The petition shall be authorized in a manner to be prescribed by general law and shall specify the general nature of the law sought to be passed. Such law shall become operative only if it is adopted by ordinance of the governing body of the municipality or county or by vote of the legally qualified voters thereof. The Legislature shall prescribe in such law or by general law the method of adopting such law, and the manner in which the ordinance of adoption may be enacted or the vote taken, as the case may be.”
The Assembly Minutes of June 28, 1956 show the receipt of 30 separate petitions for special rent control acts. These, together with such bills as accompanied them, were referred to the Judiciary Committee under suspension of rules, with the direction that they not be printed. The Senate Journal for the same day makes no reference to the receipt of any petitions, but shows that 22 rent control bills were introduced on behalf of as many separate municipalities. The bills were given a second reading and then referred to the Committee on State, County and Municipal Government. At no time subsequent to the reference of the petitions and bills to it did the Assembly Judiciary Committee report thereon. Nor did the Senate Committee on State, County and Municipal Government report on the 22 bills.
What happened next was that on July 2, 1956 a “Notice of Intention to Apply for the Passage of a Special Law” was published in the newspapers of the several counties where the interested municipalities were located. Appended to the notice were the names of six assemblymen, none of whom had any official connection with the petitioning municipalities. The notice announced that the general object of the proposed law was “to authorize the municipalities wherein rent control was in effect and operation on June 30, 1956 and which have or shall have petitioned the Legislature for special laws, respectively, to authorize the adoption of rent control ordinances therein.” The special law was to be inoperative in a municipality until adopted by ordinance, but no referendum was required. The law, as well as any ordinance adopted by its authority, was to expire December 31, 1957. The proposed legislation was to provide for the continuance of county rent control review boards, as set up under the State Rent Control Act of 1953, and for rent increases to landlords and
Pursuant to this notice, Assembly Bill No. 591 was introduced on July 9, 1956 and given three readings on that day, as an emergency measure. The Speaker declared the bill lost when it received only 37 votes. (
Rule 19 of the Standing Rules of the General Assembly provides that no member shall vote on any question “where he was not within the bar of the General Assembly when the question was put.” No motion was made for the suspension of this rule, as required by Standing Rule 60. The Assembly Minutes, as well as the testimony at the hearing, show that there was immediate objection from the floor to the announced vote by which the bill had passed.
The Senate received Assembly Bill No. 591 on July 16 and gave it a first and second reading. It then adjourned,
In support of their attack upon L. 1956, c. 146 because the bill was not duly passed by the Legislature or otherwise made effective by law in the manner required by the Constitution and the implementing statutes, the applicants argue that
1. The bill did not receive the 40 affirmative votes required for passage, but only 39 valid votes. The 40th vote was improperly received — in view of Assembly Rules 19 and 60 — after the Speaker had announced the vote and declared the bill lost.
2. There was no compliance with the requirements for public notice of intention to apply for the passage of the act.
3. No petition for passage of the law was filed.
4. The enactment of L. 1956, c. 146 in the form of an omnibus special law was contrary to
5. The enactment did not result from a proper consideration of the petitions filed by the municipalities affected thereby.
The first, and to us the determinative, question posed is: Was L. 1956, c. 146 actually a special law regulating the internal affairs of a municipality or county, so as to call into play
“Ordinarily, the exclusions from the statutory class are determinative of the generality of the act in constitutional intendment. `A law is special in a constitutional sense when, by force of an inherent limitation, it arbitrarily separates some persons, places or things from others upon which, but for such limitation, it would operate. The test of a special law is the appropriateness of its provisions to the objects that it excludes.’ Budd v. Hancock, 66 N.J.L. 133. And, in resolving the question, the substance and practical operation rather than the form of the statute control. * * *” 134 N.J.L., at page 333.
The Legislature is necessarily accorded a broad discretion in the area of permissible classification. City of Passaic v. Consolidated Police, etc., Pension Fund Commission, above, 18 N.J. at page 146; State v. Guida, 119 N.J.L. 464, 466 (E. & A. 1938). Within the range of this discretion the Legislature may enact a statute as a general law which operates “equally upon all of a group of objects which, having regard to the purposes of the Legislature, are distinguished by characteristics sufficiently marked and important to make them a class by themselves.” City of Burlington v. Pennsylvania R. Co., above, 104 N.J.L. at page 654; Gundaker Central Motors, Inc. v. Gassert, 23 N.J. 71, 80 (1956). The term “general law,” as Chief Justice Beasley said in Van Riper v. Parsons, 40 N.J.L. 1, 8 (Sup. Ct. 1878), does not import universality in the subjects or operation of such law. It has been said that a law is general if it embraces all and excludes none whose conditions and wants render such legislation equally appropriate to them as a class. Wanser v. Hoos, above, 60 N.J.L. at page 525.
“* * * It is well established that statutes may be operative and limited to specific types of municipalities and that the statutory classification of municipalities under a restricted description for applicability of the statute will not place the law within the inhibition of special legislation when the distinctions that typify the class are related to the object of the statute, and when such distinctions are substantial rather than illusory.”
There have been a number of cases upholding the constitutional validity of statutes dealing with particular localities or particular classes of municipalities, even though they did not deal universally with all possible objects. E.g., Borough of Little Ferry v. Bergen County Sewer Authority, 9 N.J. 536, 545 (1952); Interstate Sanitation Commission v. Weehawken Township in Hudson County, 141 N.J. Eq. 536, 542 (Ch. 1948), modified 1 N.J. 330 (1949); In re Petition of Cleveland, 51 N.J.L. 319, 323 (Sup. Ct. 1889), affirmed 52 N.J.L. 188 (E. & A. 1889); Doughty v. Conover, 42 N.J.L. 193, 195 (Sup. Ct. 1880). Cf. Jamouneau v. Harner, 16 N.J. at page 521.
The act under consideration authorized the adoption of a rent control ordinance by any municipality where rent control was in effect on June 30, 1956, and which “heretofore” — i.e., before July 31, 1956, the effective date of the law (L. 1956, c. 146, § 18;
We consider the question of reasonable classification as having been entirely settled by Addiss v. Logan Corporation, above, 23 N.J. 142 (1957). That case, as already mentioned, involved the 1954 amendment (L. 1954, c. 260) to the State Rent Control Act of 1953 (L. 1953, c. 216;
“* * * the 1954 enactment applied generally to all those municipalities which, on December 20, 1954, found the need for controls to exist; it treated all such municipalities alike and thus it was of general application within a given class.” 23 N.J. at page 147.
See, also, the Jamouneau case, and the discussion of general and special laws in Bucino v. Malone, 12 N.J. 330, 340-342 (1953).
We pass the argument made by the State and amici curiae that L. 1956, c. 146 does not regulate the internal affairs of municipalities, and hence is a valid enactment. Holding as we do that the statute is a general law, it would be constitutional even though regulating the internal affairs of a municipality or county. Lynch v. Borough of Edgewater, 8 N.J. 279, 292 (1951); Borough of Jamesburg v. Hubbs, 6 N.J. 578, 584 (1951).
A legislative determination that an act is general or special is not binding on the court. The Court of Errors and Appeals in Wanser v. Hoos, above, 60 N.J.L. at page 525, said that
“* * * The question whether any particular statute is local or special must be determined not upon its compliance with a legislative classification, but upon whether, having regard to the character of the legislation and the limitation upon it contained in the act, the statute is or is not a general law as defined by the courts.”
The many instances where statutes, all of them purporting to be general, have been struck down as special, are testimony enough to the continuing viability of this statement.
Only a superficial examination of the facts can give any support to the argument urged upon us that the Legislature intended to enact a special law, and nothing else. Viewed in the perspective of the circumstances existing at the time the Legislature had the rent control problem before it, the course of conduct it pursued is evident and understandable.
The Legislature was confronted with an emergent problem — the growing concern of many municipalities operating under rent control as they faced the imminent expiration of the State Rent Control Act of 1953. The deadline was midnight, June 30, 1956.
It would be unreasonable to infer from what the Legislature did that the lawmakers were not in fact dealing with the rent control issue on a general basis. The applicants have mistaken legislative zeal to forestall a successful attack on the statute, for a determination that the act was not comprehensive in its application.
A statute is presumably constitutional, and the court should so construe it as to render it constitutional if it is reasonably susceptible to such a construction. Daly v. Daly, 21 N.J. 599, 604 (1956); Woodhouse v. Woodhouse, 17 N.J. 409, 416 (1955). A law will not be declared void unless its repugnancy to the Constitution is so manifest as to
While utilization of the principles just stated is generally associated with the substantive provisions of a statute, their applicability need not be so confined. The procedural mechanism invoked in the enactment of L. 1956, c. 146. is not incompatible or inconsistent with a determination that the act is general rather than special. The precautionary measures taken by the Legislature only serve to heighten the responsibility placed upon the court to sustain the act if at all possible. The Legislature intended to insure the validity of the act, and not merely to enact special legislation. To adopt the applicants’ position would frustrate the legislative intent on the basis of form rather than substance.
Since we have determined that the act here in question constitutes general legislation, failure to comply with the procedure required for the passage of a special, private or local act does not affect its validity. It therefore is unnecessary to consider the other points raised.
The application is dismissed.