Beauchamp v. Consolidated School Dist. No. 4

• Decision Date: 02 February 1923
• Docket Number: No. 24099.,24099.
• Citation: 247 S.W. 1004,297 Mo. 64
• Parties: BEAUCHAMP v. CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL DIST. NO. 4
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

247 S.W. 1004

297 Mo. 64

BEAUCHAMP v. CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL DIST. NO. 4

No. 24099.

Supreme Court of Missouri, in Banc.

February 2, 1923.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Livingston County; A. B. Davis, Judge.

Suit by J. W. Beauchamp against Consolidated School District No. 4, Livingston County, and others. From an adverse judgment, plaintiff appeals, Affirmed.

Lewis A. Chapman and Frank Sheetz, both of Chillicothe, for appellant.

Schmitz & Marshall, of Chillicothe, for respondents.

JAMES T. BLAIR, J.

This is a suit to enjoin respondent district and its officers and directors from issuing and selling certain bonds pursuant to an election held in the district. The trial court refused to grant an injunction, and this appeal followed.

Appellant is a resident taxpaying citizen of the respondent consolidated school district. March 16, 1922, there was a meeting of the directors of the district, which all attened save one, who was notified, but could not be present. Among other things, the board voted to "submit to the qualified voters of consolidated district No. 4. a proposition to authorize the school board to issue bonds to the amount of $6,000, to be payable in five years," with interest not "to exceed 5 per cent., for the purpose of repairing, remodeling and equipping the school building in consolidated district No. 4, situated in the town of Avalon, Livingston county, Mo." On the following day notices were prepared and posted to the effect, among other things, "that the annual school meeting of said district will be held at the voting room in Avalon on Tuesday, the fourth of April, 1922," and that "the following will be proposed and considered: * * * (4th) To authorize the school board to issue bonds to the amount"—and thenceforward this part of the notice follows tie order of the board as already quoted. The election was held, and the fourth proposition received more than two-thirds of the votes. The evidence showed, and the court must have found, that the "voting room" referred to in the notice was the room used for the election and the room used for the preceding dozen or more years for all elections—township, county, state, and school—except the election at which the district was formed some eight years before, which was held in the schoolhouse, as the statute required. It also appeared that the room was well known in the village of Avalon as the place at which all elections were held. It further appeared that nearly every voter voted in the election, and that those who did not remained away because they were indifferent to the questions to be submitted. The board cast up the returns, ordered the issuance of the bonds, hired an additional teacher, and let the contract for the work on the building, which work was commenced and carried far enough to render the building useless for occupancy by the school. This suit was then commenced.

I. The purposes for which the district could vote bonds are enumerated by the statute. Section 11127, R. S. 1919. It is urged that no power is given to vote bonds for the purpose of "remodeling" the school building. The statute does authorize bonds "for the purpose of * * * erecting schoolhouses * * * and furnishing the same, and building additions to and repairing old buildings." According to the dictionaries the word "remodel" has, as the only one of its legitimate meanings which could be applicable here, the meaning "to reconstruct." In fact, there is nothing included in the word in the sense in which it can be applied to existing buildings in a situation like that in this case, which is not within the statutory language "erecting schoolhouses * * * and building additions to and repairing old buildings." Appellant's construction, like a similar one in an almost identical case (otter v. Joint School District, 164 Wis. loc. cit. 15, 158 N. W. 80), is, as the Supreme Court of Wisconsin said, "too narrow. The statute was intended to enable school districts that did not have adequate schoolhouses to obtain them by purchase or erection, and it should receive a liberal construction to effectuate that purpose. The remodeling of a building is more than repairing it or making minor changes therein. The ordinary significance of the term imports a change in the remodeled building practically equivalent to a new one. * * * The inclusion of an old structure into a practically new one does not take the process out of the meaning of the term `erection' used in a broad sense." The...