THE PORT OF NEW YORK AUTHORITY AND WALSH CONSTRUCTION COMPANY, PLAINTIFFS-RESPONDENTS, v. TOWNSHIP OF WEEHAWKEN, CHARLES F. KRAUSE, JR., MAYOR OF THE TOWNSHIP OF WEEHAWKEN, ET AL., DEFENDANTS-APPELLANTS.
Supreme Court of New Jersey
Argued March 1, 1954—Decided March 15, 1954.
14 N.J. 570
Mr. Russell E. Watson argued the cause for respondents (Messrs. Sidney Goldstein, Daniel B. Goldberg, Joseph Lesser, Frank Moss and Jack Rosen, of counsel).
The opinion of the court was delivered by
WILLIAM J. BRENNAN, JR., J. The Port of New York Authority has commenced the construction, estimated to cost $90,000,000, of a third tunnel of the Lincoln Tunnel, originally named the Midtown Hudson Tunnel, without having first obtained express authorization for such construction from the Legislatures of New York and New Jersey under section 2 of chapter 4 of the 1931 Laws of New Jersey which in pertinent part provides:
* * * and the Port Authority is hereby authorized and empowered to construct, own, maintain and operate an interstate vehicular tunnel or tunnels (hereinafter called the Midtown Hudson Tunnel) under the Hudson River, together with such approaches thereto and connections with highways as the Port Authority may deem necessary or desirable.
The Port Authority shall from time to time make studies, surveys and investigations to determine the necessity and practicability of additional vehicular bridges and tunnels over or under interstate waters within the said Port of New York district, and report to the Governors and Legislatures of the two States thereon. The Port Authority shall not proceed with the construction of any additional vehicular bridges and tunnels over or under said interstate waters until hereafter expressly authorized by the two said States.
The case is here on certification of our own motion of the appeal of the Township of Weehawken to the Appellate Division from a judgment of the Chancery Division restraining the township from interfering with the operations of a contractor engaged by the Port Authority to do certain of the tunnel work to be performed in the township. The Chancery Division found no merit in the township‘s contention that the Port Authority has no authority to construct the third tunnel without the express permission of the Legislatures of the two States. The Port of New York Authority v. Township of Weehawken, 27 N. J. Super. 328 (1953).
We reach a conclusion contrary to that of the Chancery Division. In our view the provision that the Port Authority shall not proceed with the construction of “any additional” tunnel until expressly authorized by the two States applies with perfect directness to the construction of the third tunnel and without such authorization the Port Authority may not lawfully proceed with its construction.
The Lincoln Tunnel is a vehicular crossing under the Hudson River between Weehawken in New Jersey and midtown New York City. It consists of two tunnels, the first completed in 1937 and the second in 1945. Originally estimated to cost $96,000,000, the twin tunnels actually cost $87,000,000. The Lincoln Tunnel is one of three major trans-Hudson River vehicular crossings operated by the Port Authority. The others аre the Holland Tunnel between Jersey City and downtown New York City, and the George Washington Bridge between Fort Lee, New Jersey, and the Bronx, uptown New York City.
The third tunnel is not projected merely to improve the service at the Lincoln Tunnel crossing. In a substantial way it is tantamount to if not actually a substitute for a new trans-Hudson River crossing. It is designed specifically to relieve in a measurable degree the acute trans-Hudson River vehicular traffic problem which has worsеned annually in alarming proportions since the end of World War II.
The Port Authority operates upon principles embodied, upon its recommendations, in the 1931 statute. Fundamentally those principles reflect the concept that maximum advantage of the commercial and industrial potential of the Port district is to be realized from a coordinated and carefully planned attack upon the entire Port district vehicular transportation problem through provision of an integrated and self-supporting systеm of interstate crossings financed through the pooling of the revenues from all units and constructed and operated by a single agency for maximum efficiency and economy. There is common agreement that, under Port Authority administration, the policy has proved highly beneficial to the welfare and economy of the Port district.
The 1931 plans for the Lincoln Tunnel forecast that it would “approach its capacity traffic volume in 1946” and that the “total trans-Hudson traffic in 1948 will be 75,000,000 vehicles.” The Port Authority‘s 1952 Annual Report shows thаt actually 73,344,791 vehicles used “the Port Au-
The 1950 Annual Report contains a comment which openly suggests that it was necessary to project the third tunnel as the alternative to a new crossing at another location. The comment is, “This facility, to be completed in 1957, is expected to be self-supporting, an important factor when it is realized that a new two tube tunnel, probably costing over $200,000,000, could not in the foreseeable future pay for itself.” At all events, the Port Authority Commissioners on May 16, 1950 appropriated $120,000 for an immediate engineering study of a new two-lane tube at the Lincoln Tunnel “to augment the two existing tubes so that the increasing load of trans-Hudson traffiс might be more effectively handled.” And the resolution of the Port Authority Commissioners, adopted March 8, 1951, authorizing the construction of the third tunnel recites that the “Port Authority has heretofore constructed two such interstate tunnels (which two tunnels are known collectively as the Lincoln Tunnel) and it is desirable and in the public interest to construct a third such tunnel under and pursuant to such statutes and
The Port of New York Authority was created in 1921 by the States of New York and New Jersey, with approval of the Congress, as a joint or common agency of the two States, 1921 New York Laws, chapter 154, 1921 New Jersey Laws, chapter 151,
The argument of the Port Authority, adopted by the Chancery Division, why approval of the two Legislatures is not also required, is that the authority in the first paragraph of section 2 of the 1931 act to construct “an interstate vehicular tunnel or tunnels (hereinafter called the Midtown Hudson Tunnel)” is authority to construct any number of tunnels at that midtown crossing so that the provision of the second paragraph that “The Port Authority shall not proceed with the construction of any additional vehicular bridges and tunnels over or under said interstate waters until hereafter expressly authorized by the two said States” is to bе read, not to include a requirement for prior approval of any additional tunnels at that crossing, but only to require approval to construct tunnels at “any new and independent Hudson River vehicular crossing.” An alternative argument is also made that the third tunnel, termed an adjunct tube, may
We need spend no time on the suggestion that the third tunnel is a mere addition or improvement. The third tunnel is in every way a major new crоssing facility and is not the less so because it will function in harness with the existing twin tunnels.
The fallacy of the proposition that the authority to construct “tunnels” at the midtown crossing means tunnels without limit as to number and thus that the third tunnel is not an “additional” tunnel within the statutory requirement of prior legislative approval is exposed by the legislative history which led to the 1931 act. We think that history demonstrates beyond question of doubt that the power to construct tunnels at that crossing related only to the construction of twin tunnels at the crossing and was exhausted whеn they were completed. The corollary of course is that the prohibition against the building of “any additional * * * tunnels” until expressly authorized by the two States applies to any new tunnel whether adjunct to an existing group of a unit in a new crossing.
Certainly so significant a contraction of the sweep of the ordinary meaning of the words “any additional * * * tunnels,” if it had been intended by the Legislatures, would have been expressed in clear and unmistakable terms.
Much more than the great cost is involved in the construction of a vehicular tunnel. The selection of its location is a matter of first importance. The decision will of course have a vital bearing upon the advancement of the economy of the entire Port district; but it may also entail significant social and other consequences of public concern. The Port Authority‘s 1952 Annual Report to the Governors and Legislatures, for example, reveals that the construction of the third tunnel “will require the relocation of some 900 families, most of them in low or middle income groups.” The proрer determination of what will best serve the overall
We turn, then, to the legislative history. Before 1930 all of the fixed vehicular crossings in the Port district were not under the supervision of the Port Authority. The Holland Tunnel, for instance, was operated by the New York and New Jersey Tunnel Commissions. In that year the pressing need for another vehicular crossing precipitated the enactment of statutes by both States, 1930 New York Laws, chapter 420, 1930 New Jersey Laws, chapter 248, appropriating $400,000, half by each State, to finance studies and investigations by the Port Authority of the practicability of a midtown tunnel and directing it to report to the Legislatures of the two States at their next sessions.
In obedience to these directions the Port Authority submitted a repоrt on January 9, 1931. The report recommended the immediate construction of a midtown tunnel according to detailed plans submitted with the report and prepared by the Port Authority‘s chief engineer. These plans called for a “main tunnel under the Hudson River * * * to consist of twin tubes” estimated to cost $96,000,000. But the Port Authority did not stop with the recommendation for construction of the tunnel. Going on to say that the Port Authority Commissioners “should like to set forth certain principles which have been evolved from months of study of the transportatiоn problem,” the report developed the
The report observed that “vision, courage, competency, careful studies and serious application are necessary to its solution [the then existing and foreshadоwed vehicular transportation problem].” “Each new facility must be located at the most advantageous point. They all must be under unified control and operation. Unsound and expensive financing, hit-or-miss location, unrelated operations and lack of foresight must be avoided.” The report urged that the States “now establish a sound, constructive policy that will anticipate the needs of vehicular traffic within the Port District and carry forward the construction of facilities to meet such needs * * *.”
Of especiаl pertinence to the problem before us is the specific recommendation that the program “include immediate authorization of the Midtown Hudson Tunnel and constant study of the situation so that further construction may be anticipated and recommendations made to the Legislature for authorization to construct additional facilities as traffic demands may require,” which the Port Authority viewed as an essential part of “a sound public policy pursuant to which the Port Authority may proceed not only to cоnstruct the next vehicular crossing [that is, the midtown tunnel] but also to have directions in a general program of construction which will provide, as the necessity arises, all adequate accommodations.”
It is at once evident that authority to construct the “tunnel or tunnels (hereinafter called the Midtown Hudson Tunnel)” had reference solely to the twin tunnels recommended by the Port Authority and described and illustrated in considerable detail in the charts and drawings submitted to the Legislatures with the plans of the chief engineer. Any further additions to the group of existing bridges and tunnels and to the twin-tunnel Lincoln Tunnel crossing are inclusively embraced within the “any additional bridges and tunnels” which the Port Authority was explicitly directed were not to be built until expressly authorized by the two States on the basis of studies, surveys and investigations contemplated to be a continuing activity of the Authority.
We consider it obvious also that neither the Legislatures nor the Port Authority contemplated in 1931 that a new tunnel taking the form of a third tunnel at the Lincoln Tunnel crossing would be excepted from the requirement of prior legislative approval, particularly a third tunnel in fact purposed as a new and major crossing facility to be used in such manner as to afford the traffic relief that might be expected of a new crossing at another location.
The inclusive restraint against further construction without express authorization was clearly responsive to the
Reversed.
JACOBS, J. (with whom BURLING, J., agrees, dissenting). The Port Authority, acting with the full approval of thе Governors of New York and New Jersey, has embarked on an
In section 2, chapter 4 of the Laws of 1931 the Port Authority was “authorized and empowered to construct, own, maintain and operate an interstate vehicular tunnel or tunnels,” called the Midtown Hudson (now the Lincoln) Tunnel together with such approaches and connections with highways as the Port Authority may deem necessary or desirable. The Legislature did not provide that the tunnel shall consist of one, two or three tubes; on the contrary, it deliberately used the general language which authorized the operation of an interstate vehicular tunnel or tunnels to bе known as the Midtown Hudson (now the Lincoln) Tunnel and to be constructed within the geographic limits set forth in the statute. It may hardly be disputed that this language, standing alone, is ample authority for the first tube which was completed in 1937, for the second tube which was completed in 1945, and for the proposed third tube scheduled for completion in 1957. It is true that a second paragraph in section 2 provides that the Port Authority shall make studies to determine the necessity and practicability of “additional vehicular bridges and tunnels” and shall not prоceed with the construction of any “additional vehicular bridges and tunnels” until expressly authorized by both States. But it seems to us that here the Legislature was referring to any new proposed crossings over or under the waters in the Port of New York district, wholly apart from the Lincoln Tunnel. The reference to additional vehicular bridges could have no relation whatever to the Lincoln Tunnel and indicates that the Legislature was then concerned with new and unrelated crossings; and the conjunctive use of the word “tunnels” at that particular point would appear to refer equally to new proposed crossings unrelated to the Lincoln Tunnel. Noscitur a sociis—
In support of its contrary construction the majority opinion goes beyond the terms of the statute and refers extensively to legislative history. Where there is no ambiguity there is ordinarily no necessity for judicial construction; however, we in no wise question the use of the history if it actually sheds light on the meaning of the statutory language. See United States v. Universal C. I. T. Credit Corp., 344 U. S. 218, 221 (1952). The report which preceded the 1931 legislation did rеcommend a twin-tube tunnel and it may be assumed that such construction was expected by the Legislature. But much more significant is the fact that the Legislature deliberately did not bind the Port Authority to the construction of a twin-tube tunnel but used broad, general phraseology which evidenced its intent to leave the matter to the expert discretionary judgment of the Authority. As Judge Learned Hand has so often stressed, the words actually employed by the Legislature are still “the most important single factor in ascertaining its intent.” See Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. Ickelheimer, 132 F. 2d 660, 662 (C. C. A. 2 1943). If the Authority had built nо more than a single tube upon the view that the public interest warranted no further construction, there could be no suggestion that it had improperly disregarded the legislative contemplation of twin tubes; similarly, we fail to see how the Authority‘s conclusion that the public interest requires three tubes can be said to constitute an improper disregard of legislative contemplation. Many great constitutional provisions and social enactments couched in general terms were actually brought about by narrow situations confronting the deliberative bodies. Yet it is clear that to meet changing needs they are properly given life and vigor in accordance with the sweep of their terms and are not confined to their narrower antecedents. As expressed in Professor Horack‘s revision of Sutherland, statutes embodying general terms are to be applied not only
The majority opinion suggests that since the construction of the new tube involves not only financial costs but other social matters such as the relocation of families, specific approval should be in legislative hands. This point of view may equally be expressed as to additions and improvements not involving the construction of a tube but there it is conceded by all that no such specific legislative approval is required. As we view the matter, the Legislature effectively vested the public responsibility directly in the Port Authority acting with the approval of the Governor who, as the elected representative of all of our people, was deemed to be peculiarly equipped to evaluate and protect the interests of the entire State.
If we are to discharge our function faithfully we must seek and effectuate the overriding legislative plan. When the 1931 statute was enacted a primary legislative objective was to entrust to the Port Authority comprehensive and continuing power to construct and operate the Lincoln Tunnel in such manner as to meet the vital traffic needs of future as well as present generations; that such needs might call for the enlargement of the Lincoln Tunnel by the addition of a tube within the geographic limits prescribed may readily be assumed to have been envisioned. Wholly consistent with and complementary to the foregoing objective was the legislative purpose to have the Port Authority study the needs for new and unrelated additional crossing projects, either bridges or tunnels, and submit them for approval. The statutory language was appropriately expressed to achieve both of these ends and should be given such effect. Although we are not entirely in accord with Judge Drewen‘s restrictive approach to the use of extrinsic materials as interpretative aids, we adopt generally the views which are expressed fully and persuasively in his opinion below. See Port of New
We would affirm the judgment for plaintiffs entered in the Chancery Division.
For reversal—Chief Justice VANDERBILT, and Justices HEHER, OLIPHANT and BRENNAN—4.
For affirmance—Justices BURLING and JACOBS—2.