Attorney General of the State of Michigan Kies v. Thomas Lowrey
| Decision Date | 13 November 1905 |
| Docket Number | No. 21,21 |
| Citation | 50 L.Ed. 167,199 U.S. 233,26 S.Ct. 27 |
| Parties | ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN upon the Relation of L. E. KIES et al., Plff. in Err. , v. THOMAS J. LOWREY, H. S. Walworth, C. H. Manzer, et al |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Mr. Frank A. Lyon for plaintiff in error.
[Argument of Counsel from pages 233-235 intentionally omitted] Messrs. Henry B. Graves and Fred H. Stone for defendants in error.
[Argument of Counsel from pages 235-237 intentionally omitted] Mr. Justice McKenna delivered the opinion of the court:
The Constitution of the state of Michigan requires the legislature to establish and provide a system of public schools, whereby a school shall be kept open at least three months in each year in every school district in the state. In fulfilment of this requirement legislation was enacted from time to time providing for the formation of school districts. Under this legislation (1881) four school districts were organized in the townships of Somerset and Moscow, county of Hillsdale. In 1901 the legislature passed an act known as 'Act Number 315 of the Local Acts of the State of Michigan for the Year 1901,' entitled 'An Act to Incorporate the Public Schools of the Village of Jerome, Hillsdale County, Michigan; Define the Boundaries Thereof, Provide for the Election of Trustees and Fix their Powers and Duties, and Provide for the Distribution of the Territory of the Disorganized Districts.' By this act one of the districts formed in the townships of Somerset and Moscow, in which the village of Jerome is situated, and portions of other districts, were set off and incorporated in one school district, to be known as 'the public schools of the village of Jerome.' The act appointed defendants in error trustees of the new district, to continue in office until their successors should be elected, as provided in the act. The act gave to the new district the property within its limits which had belonged to the districts from which it was created, and required the new district to assume and pay the debts and obligations of the old districts. The new district did not include all of the lands of the old districts.
On the 7th of October, 1901, an information was filed in the nature of a quo warranto by the attorney general of the state upon the relation of L. E. Kies, W. E. Alley, J. B. Strong, and Stephen McCleary, charging defendants in error with usurping, intruding into, and unlawfully claiming to exercise 'a false, fictitious, and pretended public office, to wit, trustees and officers of the pretended school district known as 'the public schools of the village of Jerome,' and ex officio 'the board of school inspectors of the public schools of the village of Jerome,' to wit, at the county of Hillsdale aforesaid, in contempt of the people of the state of Michigan, and to their great damage and prejudice.'
The circuit court rendered a judgment of ouster against defendants in error. The supreme court entered the following judgment:
The grounds of attack upon the validity of the act creating the new district in the supreme court of the state were as follows:
First. It deprives this school district or municipality of the right of local self-government, guaranteed to all municipalities by the Constitution.
Second. The title to the act indicates, and the act itself embraces, more than one object.
Third. The act is broader than the title; the body of the act embraces many objects not covered by the title.
Fourth. The act as passed impairs the obligation of contracts, within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the state of Michigan.
With the first three grounds we have no concern. They present strictly local questions. We are concerned with the fourth ground only in so far as it invokes the Constitution of the...
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