State v. Williams, ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2021). Defendant was convicted in Municipal Court for violating an ordinance that stated that “No person shall unnecessarily obstruct any . . . street, or public place in the Borough [of Victory Gardens] with any kind of vehicle, boxes, lumber, wood, or any other thing[.]” Defendant had applied black paint over white lines on a paved surface whose status she disputed. The Borough said that surface was a street, while defendant claimed that it was part of her property as a “parking bay.” After a trial de novo in the Law Division, which ended with a ruling against defendant, she appealed to the Appellate Division. Today, that court reversed in an opinion by Judge Moynihan.
The facts were undisputed. Thus, the only issue was one of law, to which Judge Moynihan applied de novo review.
The ordinance did not define “obstruct.” Judge Moynihan thus looked to several dictionaries for that word’s “generally accepted meaning.” He noted that “[i]ngrained in all the common definition of ‘obstruct’ is the physical impediment of passage along a course.” Also persuasive was N.J.S.A. 2C:33-7(a), which says that those who “purposely or recklessly obstruct[ ] any highway or other public passage” without “having . . . legal privilege to do so” are guilty of a petty disorderly persons offense. That statute defines “obstruct” as “renders impassable without unreasonable inconvenience or hazard.” Judge Moynihan cited caselaw under that statute, including an opinion by Justice Long when she sat as a Law Division judge in further support.
The ordinance itself required obstruction by a list of tangible items culminating in “any other thing” (emphasis by Judge Moynihan). Painting over a line did not constitute obstruction by a “thing,” or obstruction at all.
Finally, Judge Moynihan said that if “obstruct” were ambiguous, which the panel decided was not so, the “essentially criminal” nature of municipal court proceedings for ordinance violations would call for a ruling for defendant. “[T]he rule of lenity, resolving any ambiguities in the ordinance in favor of a defendant charged with a violation thereof” required that result.
Judge Moynihan carefully observed that the panel’s decision today did not “imply defendant did not commit some violation of another ordinance or a statute. We reverse because the prosecution did not establish a violation of the charged ordinance”.