L. 1916, ch. 42.

Parks, athletic fields and playgrounds.

§§ 169, 188a.

§ 169. Acquisition of lands for parks, squares, athletic fields and playgrounds. The board of trustees may, on behalf of the village, accept by grant or devise a gift of land for a public park, square, athletic field or playground, within the village, or wholly within three miles of the boundaries thereof, or may submit to a village election a proposition to purchase land so located for such purpose at an expense, specified in the proposition, specifying the maximum amount to be paid therefor and the mode of raising such amount. If the proposition be adopted, the board may purchase such land accordingly, or, if unable to agree with the owners for the purchase thereof, may acquire title thereto by condemnation; but if the commissioners appointed in the condemnation proceedings shall fix the value of the land at a larger amount than authorized to be paid therefor by such election, the condemnation proceedings shall be abandoned and the costs of the defendants shall be paid by the village unless payment of such larger amount shall be authorized at a village election. The board of trustees may lease in the name of the village lands within the village for a public park, athletic field or playground and may equip the same with suitable buildings, structures and apparatus and may thereafter maintain and improve the same at the expense of the village, but such lease shall not be made for a longer period than five years nor at an expense for each fiscal year exceeding one mill on every dollar of taxable property of the village as appears on the last preceding village assessment-roll unless authorized at a village election. The amount of such rent shall be paid in annual instalments commencing with the date of the lease. Upon the acquisition of land for the purposes of this section, either by gift, purchase or lease, the board may establish and maintain the same for its intended purposes and shall have the power to perform all the duties of a separate board of park commissioners as provided for in this chapter. (Amended by L. 1909, ch. 469, and L. 1916, ch. 42, in effect Mch. 15, 1916.)

§ 188-a. Police department.-The board of trustees of a village in a county adjoining a city of the first class, or if the municipal board continued by section sixty-six acts as police commissioners, such board may, instead of appointing policemen for fixed terms pursuant to section one hundred and eighty-eight, by resolution, establish a police department in such village, and appoint a chief of police and such number of policemen as may be needed, and fix their compensation. No person shall be eligible to membership in such police force who shall not be a citizen of the United States, who shall have been convicted of felony, who shall be unable to read or write understandingly the English language or who shall not have resided within the village two years, next preceding his appointment. No person shall be appointed a member of such police force who is over the age of forty-five years, nor continue to act as such after reaching the age of sixty-five years; provided, however, that village po

§§ 200, 204.

Fire companies; fire commissioners.

L. 1916, ch. 25.

licemen who are over the age of forty-five years and under the age of sixty-five years at the time of the organization of such police department shall be eligible for appointment in such department. Except as provided by this section a member of such police force shall continue in office unless suspended or dismissed. A member found guilty upon charges, after notice and opportunity to be heard in his defense, of neglect or dereliction in the performance of official duty, or violation of rules and regulations, or disobedience of orders, or absence without leave, or other breach of discipline, or incompetency to perform official duty, or an act or delinquency seriously affecting his general character or fitness for office, may be punished by the board of trustees or other municipal board having jurisdiction, by reprimand, forfeiture and the withholding of salary or compensation for a specified time not exceeding twenty days, suspension from duty for a specified time not exceeding twenty days, and the withholding of salary or compensation during such suspension, or by dismissal from the force. The dismissal of a member of the force, however, shall be subject to review by certiorari. (Added by L. 1915, ch. 479, and amended by L. 1916, ch. 145, in effect Apr. 6, 1916.)

L. 1916, ch. 145, § 2. Appointments heretofore made to a police department in accordance with the provisions of section one hundred and eighty-eight-a of the village law, as amended by this act, are hereby legalized and confirmed.

$ 200. General powers of the board of fire commissioners.-Subd. 10, added by L. 1916, ch. 248, in effect Apr. 18, 1916, as follows:

10. May, by resolution, authorize residents of described territory outside the village to become members of the fire department of the village, with all the powers, duties and privileges of such members, if such territory is afforded fire protection by the fire department of the village.

Note.-L. 1916, ch. 316, also added a duplicate subdivision, evidently approved by mistake.

§ 204. Election of company officers and delegates.-Each of the several companies whose members constitute the fire department of the village shall hold an annual meeting on the first Tuesday in April in each year. At such meeting the members of each company shall elect by ballot from their own number a captain and an assistant captain, who must be approved by the board of fire commissioners, one warden and one delegate to the general convention of the fire department. The terms of office of the captain and assistant captain shall be one year, the wardens two years, and the delegates three years, respectively, and any vacancies occurring in any such offices shall be filled by election in like manner. At the first annual meeting after this act takes effect two wardens and three delegates shall be elected, the wardens to serve for one and two years, respectively, and the delegates for one, two and three years, respectively. (Amended by L. 1916, ch. 25, in effect Mch. 9, 1916.)"

L. 1916, ch. 20.

Lighting system; extension.

§§ 244, 264.

§ 244. Supervision and extension of system. The lighting system acquired or established under this article shall be under the control and supervision of the board of light commissioners. The board shall keep it in repair and may, from time to time, if it has sufficient funds, extend such system, if the expense thereof in any year will not exceed one thousand dollars. If the estimated expense will exceed one thousand dollars, such extension can only be made when authorized by a proposition adopted at an election, in which event, it shall be so made. Such system may be so extended outside the village in, upon and along the highways within a town in which the village is wholly or partly situated, or within a town. adjoining that in which the village is situated if the village be wholly within one town and in a county of less than one hundred thousand population, provided, however, that if at the time of such extension there shall be a private electric light corporation operating within such village or within the territory into which such system shall be extended, such extension shall not be made without the permission and approval of the proper public service commission. If such system shall be so extended outside of a village into or through a town or adjoining town or a lighting district thereof, the board of light commissioners of the village may contract with the town board of such town for lighting the streets, highways, public grounds and public buildings of such town or lighting district, in pursuance of the provisions of article twelve of the town law, which shall be applicable to such contract and to the levying of a tax for the payment of the amounts which shall be payable thereunder to the treasurer of the village. Wherever such system shall be so extended outside a village, occupants of premises adjacent to such extended system outside the village shall be entitled to be supplied with light therefrom under the same conditions and at the same rates as occupants of premises in the village. (Amended by L. 1912, ch. 364, and L. 1916, ch. 20, in effect Mch. 6, 1916.)

§ 264. Construction of sewers solely at expense of property benefited. Notice of time and place of hearing; section must be deemed to have been enacted on date when original statute was passed. This section, requiring notice to be given to each property owner of the time and place of hearing, before the extension of a proposed sewer is decided upon, is a re-enactment of section 264 of the former Village Law enacted in 1897, and by virtue of chapter 596 of the Laws of 1909, prescribing the rules for the construction of the Consolidated Laws, it is to be deemed to have been enacted on the date when the original statute was passed, and not on the date when the Consolidated Laws were enacted, and this being prior to the enactment of the charter of the village of Saratoga Springs which governs the extension of a sewer system, the procedure prescribed by the charter should be followed. Harris v. City of Saratoga Springs (1916), 171 App. Div. 282, 156 N. Y. Supp. 844.

Extension of boundaries; petition; description of boundaries.-Where a citizen of an incorporated village petitions the trustees of the village to submit to the

Cross-references.

electors thereof a proposition to extend the boundaries of the village, his right to have the petition granted depends upon whether the petition complies with the statute (Village Law, §§ 3, 348), which prescribes that the description of the territory to be incorporated shall "suitably" describe "such district with common certainty." Where such description leaves the exact boundaries doubtful and uncertain, the petition is defective and the petitioner may not compel the trustees to submit the proposition. People ex rel. Underwood v. Village of Patchogue (1916), 217 N. Y. 466, affg. 171 App. Div. 347, 156 N. Y. Supp. 1096.

A petition to extend the corporate limits of a village, which states the boundaries of the new territory in so vague and indefinite a manner that disputes may arise as to the right to levy taxes or as to the jurisdictional right over waters, is insufficient. People ex rel. Underwood v. Trustees of Patchogue (1916), 171 App. Div. 347, 156 N. Y. Supp. 1096, affd. 217 N. Y. 466.

A verification of such petition, as provided by section 526 of the Code of Civil Procedure, does not comply with section 348 of the Village Law, as amended, especially where the body of the petition does not allege the jurisdictional fact that its signers represented a majority in value of the property therein assessed upon the last preceding town assessment roll. People ex rel. Underwood v. Trustees of Patchogue (1916), 171 App. Div. 347, 156 N. Y. Supp. 1096 affd. 217 N. Y. 466.

The corporate limits of a village should not be a matter of deduction through legal reasoning, but should be made obvious by being stated and described with common certainty. The same certainty necessary for original boundaries should be required in marking out annexed territory. People ex rel. Underwood v. Trustees of Patchogue (1916), 171 App. Div. 347, 156 N. Y. Supp. 1096, affd. 217 N. Y. 466.

VINEGAR.

Adulteration; Agr. L., §§ 70-72.

WARREN COUNTY.

Salary of county judge; County L., § 232.

WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION.

Insurance on public works; General Municipal L., § 90; State Finance L., § 51.

Constitutionality; construction.

§ 1.

WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION LAW.

(L. 1913, ch. 816; re-enacted L. 1914, ch. 41.)

§ 1. Short title.

Constitutionality.-The Workmen's Compensation Law (L. 1914, ch. 41) is not violative of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States for taking property without due process of law, and under the amendment to the State Constitution, adopted November 4, 1913, and now section 19 of article 1 of such Constitution, it is a valid enactment within the police power of the state for the promotion of the general welfare. It protects both employer and employee, the former from wasteful suits and extravagant verdicts, the latter from the expense, uncertainties and delays of litigation in all cases and from the certainty of defeat if unable to establish a case of actionable negligence; it creates a fund for the payment of the compensation allowed for disability or death from accidental injuries sustained by employees engaged in certain enumerated hazardous employments, and distributes the burden thereof equitably over the business and industries affected. The fact that the statute deprives an employee, injured by negligence imputable to the employer, of a further right of action against his employer does not render the act unconstitutional. The act does not deal with intentional wrongs but only with accidental injuries for which a new remedy is substituted in place of the common-law right of action. The legislature has the power, in the promotion of the public welfare, to require both employer and employee to yield something toward the establishment of a principle and plan of compensation for their mutual protection and advantage, and it is certainly competent for the legislature to provide, by the creation of an insurance fund, for a limited compensation to the employee for all accidental injuries, regardless of whether there was a cause of action for them at common law. Jensen v. Southern Pacific Co. (1915), 215 N. Y. 514, affg. 167 App. Div. 945, 152 N. Y. Supp. 1120.

The Workmen's Compensation Law as re-enacted and amended by chapter 41 of the Laws of 1914 is constitutional and the remedy thereby provided for an employee engaged in the employments enumerated therein is exclusive and in full substitution for any action for damages. Connors v. Semet-Solvay Co. (1916), 94 Misc. 405, 159 N. Y. Supp. 431.

Construction.-In determining the intention of the legislature in enacting the Workmen's Compensation Law there are two provisions of the act that must constantly be borne in mind as they affect and characterize all the other provisions of the act. 1. In the absence of substantial evidence to the contrary it must be presumed that the claim comes within the provisions of the act (§ 21). 2. The liability of the employer for compensation includes every accidental personal injury sustained by the employee "arising out of and in the course of his employment, without regard to fault as a cause of such injury" (§ 10). The legislature in passing the act, intended to secure injured workmen and their dependents from becoming objects of charity, and to make reasonable compensation for injuries sustained or death incurred by reason of such employment a part of the expense of the lines of business included within the definition of hazardous employments as stated in the act. The danger of injured workingmen and their dependents becoming objects of charity is just as great when an accident occurs outside the boundaries of the state as it is when it occurs within the state, and the interests of the state in its citizens is just as great in one case as in the other. The act, taken as a whole, in view of its humane purpose, should be construed to intend that in every case of employment there is a constructive contract between the employer and employee, general in its terms and unlimited as to territory, that the employer shall pay as