Title 32: Interstate and Port Authorities and Commissions

Section 1: Legal Paraphrase

Title 32 of the New Jersey Revised Statutes collects the congressionally approved compacts and statutes through which New Jersey jointly exercises sovereign powers with neighboring states, principally New York and Pennsylvania. Its centerpiece is the 1921 compact creating the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (N.J.S.A. 32:1-1 et seq.), a bistate agency empowered to plan, build, and operate transportation, terminal, airport, bridge, tunnel, and rail facilities. The Title also creates the Delaware River Port Authority (N.J.S.A. 32:2 to 32:3), the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor (N.J.S.A. 32:23), the Delaware River Basin Commission (N.J.S.A. 32:11D), the Delaware River and Bay Authority (N.J.S.A. 32:11E), the Palisades Interstate Park Commission (N.J.S.A. 32:14, 32:17), the Interstate Environmental Commission (N.J.S.A. 32:18 to 32:19A), and the Gateway Development Commission (N.J.S.A. 32:36). Because these bodies are creatures of interstate compacts, federal law and the compact texts define their powers, finances, and amenability to suit.

Section 2: ELI-10 Explanation

Imagine two kids who want to build one giant treehouse across the fence that divides their yards. Neither can build it alone — each yard's rules stop at the fence, and neither has enough wood by themselves. So they sign a "treehouse treaty," promising to share the wood, the work, and the rules, and they pick a small team to run the project for both of them. That is what Title 32 does for New Jersey and its neighbors. Instead of two states arguing over the same harbor, river, bridges, or park, they sign a compact — a written agreement between states — and create a shared agency to run things together. The Port Authority runs the tunnels, bridges, airports, and PATH trains; the Waterfront Commission polices the docks. Title 32 is the rulebook for building and running these shared "treehouses" fairly, for everyone on both sides of the fence.

Section 3: General Application & Case Example 1

How It Is Applied

Title 32 operates through compacts that, once approved by Congress, have the force of statute in New Jersey (N.J.S.A. 32:3-14) and bind both member states. Each compact creates a corporate agency — a "public authority" — with enumerated powers: to plan and build facilities, acquire property by agreement or condemnation, issue tax-exempt bonds, set and collect tolls, and adopt rules carrying civil and criminal penalties (e.g., N.J.S.A. 32:1-20, 32:1-146.5). The agencies govern a wide cast of actors: the authorities themselves, terminal operators, carriers, contractors, bondholders, and the commuters, travelers, and workers who use the facilities. The statutes also mark the limits of agency power — municipal consent requirements, protections for municipal bondholders, and express waivers of immunity permitting suit against the authorities (N.J.S.A. 32:1-157, 32:1-163). Because Congress consented to each compact under the Interstate Compact Clause, federal courts regularly construe these statutes when disputes arise over tort liability, employment, taxation, and regulatory authority.

Case Example

• Case Name & Citation: Hess v. Port Authority Trans-Hudson Corp., 513 U.S. 30 (1994)
• Statute Applied: N.J.S.A. 32:1-1 (Port Authority compact); N.J.S.A. 32:1-157, 32:1-163 (consent to suit)
• Brief Summary: Two PATH railroad employees, injured in separate on-the-job accidents, sued their employer — the Port Authority's wholly owned subsidiary — under the Federal Employers' Liability Act. PATH moved to dismiss, claiming Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity as an arm of New York and New Jersey. The Supreme Court held the Port Authority is not entitled to that immunity: the compact's financial design limits each state's obligation to the revenues generated by the Authority's own facilities, so the bistate agency does not function as an arm of either state whose treasury would be at risk. The Court also construed the states' statutory consent to suit — N.J.S.A. 32:1-157 and 32:1-163 — noting the one-year limitations period those sections impose on actions against the Authority. The decision illustrates how courts interpret the compact codified at N.J.S.A. 32:1 to fix the legal status, powers, and liabilities of bistate agencies.
• Source Link: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/us/513/30/

Section 4: ELI-10 Application & Case Example 2

Real World Example (Explained Simply)

Suppose you want to work on the docks in the Port of New York, loading and unloading giant container ships. You cannot just show up and grab a job — Title 32 set up the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor (N.J.S.A. 32:23), a "dock referee" that both New Jersey and New York agree to obey. The Commission licenses pier superintendents, registers longshoremen, watches hiring so it stays fair, and can hold hearings where it questions people under oath to chase corruption and crime off the waterfront. Even at a Commission hearing, the same shield that protects people in a courtroom applies: no one can be forced to say something that would help send them to prison. If a dockworker's honest answer could be used against him in a criminal case, he may stay silent. The rules that keep the docks honest depend on both states playing by the same compact — and on the Constitution still protecting the people who work there.

Case Example

• Case Name & Citation: Murphy v. Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor, 378 U.S. 52 (1964) — abrogated in part
• Audit note (2026-08-31): United States v. Balsys, 524 U.S. 666 (1998), described Murphy's historical reasoning as "fatally flawed", held that "Murphy went too far", rested Murphy's surviving holding solely on Malloy v. Hogan, and declined to extend it to a fear of foreign prosecution. Murphy should not be cited as unqualified current authority on the scope of the privilege.
• Statute Applied: Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor Compact, N.J.S.A. 32:23-1 et seq. (67 Stat. 541)
• Brief Summary: Murphy, a longshoreman, was subpoenaed by the Waterfront Commission — the bistate agency created by the New York–New Jersey compact codified at N.J.S.A. 32:23-1 et seq. — to testify about a work stoppage at the Hoboken, New Jersey, piers. After New Jersey and New York granted him immunity from state prosecution, he still refused to answer, explaining that his testimony could incriminate him under federal law. New Jersey courts held him in contempt. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination bars a state agency from compelling testimony that could incriminate a witness under federal law, and it overruled the earlier "two-sovereignty" doctrine of Knapp v. Schweitzer, 357 U.S. 371 (1958). The case shows how the compact's hearing and enforcement machinery (N.J.S.A. 32:23) must operate within constitutional limits — the Commission may investigate and license, but the people it questions keep their constitutional rights.
• Source Link: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/us/378/52/