§ 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.