2A:48-8 - Liability of municipality or county in damages;  amount

2A:48-8.  Liability of municipality or county in damages;  amount
    Any person who, by reason of the action of a collection of individuals--five  or more in number--assembled for the unlawful purpose of offering violence to  the person or property of any one supposed to have been guilty of the violation  of a law, or for the purpose of exercising correctional powers or regulative  powers over any person, by violence and without lawful authority, suffers  material damage to his property or injury to his person, shall be entitled to  recover his damages in an action brought for such purpose against the  municipality in which such damage is suffered or injury inflicted, if the  municipality has a paid police force, or, if not in such municipality, then,  against the county in which such damage is suffered or injury inflicted, but  not in excess of $5,000.  Where the provisions of article 1 of this chapter are  also applicable and allow a recovery for the damage to property, the person  entitled to such damages may elect to maintain his action for damages to his  property under either this article or under article 1 of this chapter, but he  may not recover under both articles for the same damages to property.
 
L.1951 (1st SS), c.344.