Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 9.djvu/88

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

MOKAN V. CITY OF ELIZABETH. 73 �city to meet forthwith and adopt measures for levying and collecting a tax for the amounts respectively due upon the judgments, with interest and costs, or to show cause at the next term of the court why the same has not been donc. �The counsel for the city resists the application on the ground that, under the act of the legislature of the state of New Jersey, approved March 27, 1878, entitled "A supplement to an act entitled 'An act respecting executions,' " the city council had no concem in levying and assessing taxes for the payment of judgments and executions against the city; but that the plaintiff must pursue the course marked out by the above-quoted statute. �It appears by the pleadings in the two causes that the judgments were obtained on interest coupons which had matured, and which had been attached to certain bonds of the city of Elizabeth, issued on the first of April, 1875. The plaintiff became the owner of the bonds for value before March 1, 1879, and is entitled to the same remedies for the collection of the principal as existed at the date of purchase. See Const. of N. J. § 7, art. 3. �The act of March 27, 1878, provides— �"That when any execution shall be issued against • • * a municipal corporation of tlils state, by any court authorlzed to issue the same, upon any judgment against • • • gueh municipal corporation, whether upon a judgment reeoTered before the passage of thls act or subsequent thereto, and there shall be no property belonging to such • • • municipal corporation sufficient to satisfy the same whereon to levy, then the officer authorlzed to execute such process shall serve a copy of the same, not only on the collecter of • • • such municipal corporation, as is now reguired by law, but also upoh the assessor thereof, who is by law required to assess the taxes In and for such • « * municipal corporation ; and upon the receipt of such copy of execution, it shall be the duty of such assessor to assess and levy, in addition to the regular taxes, the amount due upon the said execution, with interest to the time when the same shall be paid to the offlcer servlng such process, upon all the property wlthin such » * • municipal corporation; and this tax shall be asseSsed and collected at the same time and in the same manner, and under the same conditions, restrictions, and regulations, as taxes for other purposes are required to be assessed and collected in such ♦ • * munici- pal corporation, and when collected shall be pald over to the oflScer serving the said process." �The act is hroad enough, in its terms, to apply to the courts of the United States in the district of New Jersey, and I have no doubt that suitors in these courts are entitled to the benefit of its provisions. These pending cases are proceedings at law, and sections 914-916 of the Revised Statutes of the United States enact — ��� �