Long Dock Co. v. State Board of Assessors

86 N.J.L. 592 | N.J. | 1914

The opinion of the court was delivered by

Stvayüe, J.

In view of the care taken by the legislature to secure a hearing to the railroad companies, we need not deal with the *602question raised at tlie argument as to the requirements of due process of Jaw under the federal constitution. The state has provided for due process of law. We have not, it is true, adopted in civil as we have in criminal cases, a constitutional guaranty, requiring that a man be confronted with witnesses against him; we have found that the legislature and the courts sufficed to protect the citizen without the constitutional guaranty. We have always had in civil cases what is essential in the right of confrontation, i. e., the right of cross-examination. Wigm., § 139-5. Without this right, a hearing is a sham.

It was suggested iu the colloquy during the effort to take testimony that the practice under the Railroad Tax act from the very beginning had been for members of the board to refuse to give the information here sought. The authority cited is advice given by counsel for the state to a member of the board on the hearing of the original case. Central Railroad Co. v. State Board of Assessors, 48 N. J. L. 1. Wo are not advised whether the inquiry in that case was directed to the method by which the board reached its result or to the knowledge of the individual members. If to the former, the authority is not in point; if to the latter, we can only say that advice of counsel for a litigant to a witness can hardly he treated as authority by a court; however eminent the counsel may be as a lawyer, the attitude and duty of an advocate are very different, and rigidly different, from the attitude and duty of a court.

The judgment must be reversed, and the record remitted to the Supreme Court for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

For affirmance — Black, J. 1.

For reversal — -The Chancellor, Chief Justice, Sway-ze, Parker, Bergen, Bogert, Vredenluugh, Williams, J J. 8.