Stephens v. Humphrey

• Decision Date: 27 September 1920
• Docket Number: 132
• Parties: STEPHENS v. HUMPHREY
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

224 S.W. 442

145 Ark. 172

STEPHENS v. HUMPHREY

No. 132

Supreme Court of Arkansas

September 27, 1920

Appeal from Sevier Circuit Court; James S. Steel, Judge; reversed.

Judgment reversed and cause remanded.

Lake & Lake, for appellant.

The mandamus should have been granted. The directors had no right to refuse admission to the public school, to pupils properly transferred, for an infraction of the rules of the district from which they were transferred. Kirby's Digest §§ 7637 etc.; 35 Cyc. 1141-2; 31 Neb. 552; 63 Wis 234; 24 Mo.App. 309; 116 Ind. 11; 9 Am. St. 820; 69 Ark. 202; 89 Id. 254.

Abe Collins, for appellees.

1. It was within the sound discretion of the court to grant or withhold the writ. No abuse of discretion is shown. High Ext. Rem., § 9; 13 Peters 404; 1 Ark. 11; 95 Id. 118; 6 Id. 9; Ib. 437; 8 Id. 424; 122 Id. 337; 18 R. C. L. 53, 137-152; 192 S.W. 174; 21 Ark. 329.

2. The action of the directors is not reviewable in this court. Kirby's Digest, § 7637; 94 Ark. 422; Const. 1874, art. 14, § 1.

OPINION

WOOD, J.

W. E. Stephens, a citizen and taxpayer of Sevier County, Arkansas, had two sons, Wiley and Louis. Wiley was fourteen years old and Louis eleven. The boys were attending school in Common School District No. 10. Their teacher was Miss Florence House. Wiley had a fight with another boy in the school. The teacher punished the other boy and undertook to administer the same punishment to Wiley Stephens for his part in the fight. Wiley said, "I can't take any punishment." The teacher asked him why, and he replied, "I just can't take it because papa told me not to," and he said further, "I won't take anything off of this school if I have to cut my damned way through." At the time he made this remark he had an open knife in his hand. The teacher then told him to take his books and go home. The father remonstrated with the teacher, and she informed him that his boy, Wiley, could return to school if he agreed to take the punishment.

This occurred in the latter part of October, 1919. About the first of November, 1919, the county court of Sevier County entered an order transferring Wiley Stephens, Sr., for school purposes from School District No. 10 to School District No. 53. Thereafter Wiley, Jr., and Louis applied for admission to the school in District No. 53. The teacher, acting under the direction of the board of directors of School District No. 53, refused to allow Wiley to attend school. The reason assigned was that it would not be right to admit him until he had brought a "clear transport" from the other school. The teacher in School District No. 53 informed the elder Stephens that he would admit his boy, Wiley, "if he would take his punishment," but that he would not admit him unless he got orders from the board of directors to do so.

On the 17th of December, 1919, the appellant filed a petition for a writ of mandamus in the circuit court of Sevier County against Oscar Humphrey, the teacher in School District No. 53, and I. W. Slaton, J. A. Millender and J. A. Johnson, directors of that district, to compel them to admit his sons to the school in that district. On December 20, 1919, the directors of District No. 53 adopted a resolution which recites in part as follows:

"Whereas, we have been requested by Oscar Humphrey, the teacher of our school, to suspend from said school W. E. Stephens, Jr., for the current term, or until such time as he shall return to the school now being taught in district No. 10 and submit to the punishment that the teacher of said school may see fit to impose upon him for certain acts of insubordination and certain infraction of the rules of said school committed by him while attending said school; and,

"Whereas, we have already made personal investigation of the facts stated in letter and find said facts to be true.

"Now, therefore, be it resolved, that W. E. Stephens, Jr., be and he is hereby suspended from the public schools being taught in said district for the remainder of the current term or until such time as he shall return to the school in district No. 10 and submit to the punishment which the teacher of said school may see fit to impose upon him for the said acts of insubordination and the said infraction of the rules of said school committed by him while attending said school; to the end that the discipline of our own school may be upheld and maintained, and that we may not uphold him in any such course of conduct."

The above are substantially the facts developed at the hearing of the application for the writ of mandamus. The court entered a judgment refusing the writ and dismissing the petition, from which judgment is this appeal.

Section 7639 of Kirby's Digest provides: "The county court shall have power, upon the petition of any person residing in any particular school district, to transfer the children or wards of such persons, for educational purposes, to a district in the same county or to an adjoining district in an adjoining county, provided said petitioner shall state under oath that the transfer is for school purposes alone." The authority conferred upon the county court by the above statute is to be exercised solely for the benefit of the children of those asking that the transfer be made in order to enable them to obtain the best possible facilities under our public free school system. Norton v. Lakeside Special School District, 97 Ark. 71 at 71-74, 133 S.W. 184; Special School District No. 33 v. Eubanks, 119 Ark. 117 at 117-119, 177 S.W. 900.

After the judgment of the county court was rendered transferring the children of appellant to School District No. 53, the teacher of the school in district No. 10, which Wiley Stephens, Jr., formerly attended, had no further jurisdiction over him. From that time on for free school purposes he was under the jurisdiction and authority of the teacher and directors of district No. 53. He was subject to enumeration in the latter district and none other. After the transfer, the district school tax, for which appellant was liable, was a part of the revenues of district No. 53 and not of district No. 10, in which district he resided. Section 7640, Kirby's Digest; Norton v. Lakeside Special School District, supra.

It is alleged by appellees in response to the petition for mandamus, and the suggestion is made in the brief of their learned counsel, that the appellant sought and had the transfer made from...