Opinion
No. 50/434.
09-23-1921
TRENTON THEATRE BLDG. CO. et al. v. FIRTH, Sheriff.
William L. Edwards, of Long Branch, and Theodore Backes, of Trenton, for complainants. W. Holt Apgar, Linton Satterthwaite, Peter Backes, and Frederick R. Brace, all of Trenton, for defendant.
(Syllabus by the Court.)
Suit by the Trenton Theatre Building Company and others against Walter Firth, Sheriff of Mercer County, for an injunction. On order to show cause why injunction should not issue and on motion to strike out bill for want of equity. Bill dismissed for want of equity.
William L. Edwards, of Long Branch, and Theodore Backes, of Trenton, for complainants.
W. Holt Apgar, Linton Satterthwaite, Peter Backes, and Frederick R. Brace, all of Trenton, for defendant.
WALKER, C. This is a suit for injunction, brought by the complainants to restrain the sheriff of Mercer county and his deputies from closing and keeping closed all motion picture shows in their respective theaters in Trenton, on the first day of the week, commonly called Sunday. On the argument of the order to show cause why an injunction should not issue the defendant admits that he has stopped, and says he intends to stop, them, saying that he is advised, and is of opinion, that the proposed action of the complainants is contrary to the provisions of the act commonly called the vice and immorality act. Comp. Stat. p. 5712. This is a sufficient statement of the facts. Besides the contention that he, as chief peace officer of the county, by and through his deputies, is preventing an infraction of the vice and immorality act, the sheriff gives notice of a motion to dismiss the bill for want of equity. The question involved is not open in this court as the law of the case is settled.
In Green v. Piper, 80 N. J. Eq. 288, 84 Atl. 194 (1912), Vice Chancellor Emery held that injunction does not lie to compel public officers to perform their duties respecting enforcement of the Sunday laws. This casegrew out of infraction of the vice and immorality act. The converse of this proposition is that injunction does not lie to prevent public officers from enforcing the vice and immorality laws of this state. In Rosenberg v. Arrowsmith, 82 N. J. Eq. 570, 89 Atl. 524 (1914), Vice Chancellor Backes held that the operation of a moving picture show on Sunday is a worldly employment or business in violation of the vice and immorality act, and that even the fact that the proceeds were to be donated to charity did not make the operation of such a show a work of necessity or charity within the exception of the act. There is nothing in the case before me, either of fact or law, which takes it out from under the doctrine of Green v. Piper and Rosenberg v. Arrowsmith.
Upon the authority of these two cases I hold that the court of chancery has no power to enjoin the sheriff or his deputies in the premises, and, further, that the bill lacks equity, and must be dismissed.