# Marsa v. Wernik

> Supreme Court of New Jersey · June 8, 1981 · 86 N.J. 232

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9760286

## Case

- **Full name:** Paul Marsa, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Donald J. Wernik, Individually and as the Mayor of the Borough of Metuchen, Donald J. Barnickel, John W. Bertrand, Patricia Lagay, Dennis O’leary, Thomas E. Sharp, and John Wiley, Jr., Individually and as Members of the Council of the Borough of Metuchen, Defendants-Respondents
- **Court:** Supreme Court of New Jersey
- **Decided:** June 8, 1981
- **Citations:** 86 N.J. 232; 430 A.2d 888; 1981 N.J. LEXIS 1634
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Clifford
- **Judges:** Handler, Pashman, Clifford
- **Cited by:** 21 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9760286

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- finding no violation of First Amendment by invocations at borough council meetings

## Opinion text

CLIFFORD, J.,
concurring.
Justice Handler’s navigation through the treacherous waters of the establishment clause is sufficiently cautious to attract my concurring vote. While I view the question as a close one, on the basis of this record I join in the Court’s conclusion that the practice challenged here does not have the primary effect of advancing religion over nonreligion.
As I understand that practice, the governing body of the Borough of Metuchen has authorized no more than the solemnification of its proceedings by one of its members, chosen on a rotating basis. The governing body does not — nor could it constitutionally — encourage or require its members to cast that solemnification in religious form or otherwise make it religious in nature. The fact that some members choose a non-sectarian, religious medium of expression should not, without more, be construed as an endorsement of that medium by the governing body. It is specifically because that thought is at the heart of the Court’s opinion that I vote with it.
*259 Moreover, the opinion contains an implicit, if not explicit, warning found on the other side of that coin: should the frequency or intensity of these religious expressions be increased so that the practice of solemnification becomes identified unmistakably as a religious one and governmental endorsement may reasonably be inferred, then the practice will be invalidated.
Justice PASHMAN joins in this opinion.
PASHMAN and CLIFFORD JJ., concurring in the result.
For affirmance — Chief Justice WILENTZ and Justices SULLIVAN, PASHMAN, CLIFFORD, SCHREIBER, HANDLER and POLLOCK — 7.
For reversal — None.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9760286. Public record. Not legal advice.