Beavers v. State

• Decision Date: 05 January 1895
• Citation: 29 S.W. 144
• Parties: BEAVERS et al. v. STATE.
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

Page 144

29 S.W. 144

BEAVERS et al. v.STATE.

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

January 5, 1895.

Appeal from circuit court, Scott county; Edgar E. Bryant, Judge.

Action by the state of Arkansas against M. M. Beavers and others.There was a judgment for the state, and defendants appeal.Reversed.

Sterling R. Cockrill and Ashley Cockrill, for appellants.James P. Clarke, Atty. Gen., and Winchester & Martin, for the State.

WOOD, J.

This action was brought by the attorney general in the name of the state, in lieu of quo warranto.Its object is to test the legality of the organization of the town of Waldron, in Scott county, into a single school district.The directors of the district, whose existence is being questioned, were made defendants.No valid objection can be urged either to the form of the action or the parties litigant.Sand. &H. Dig. §§ 7364-7368;State v. Cincinnati Gaslight & Coke Co., 18 Ohio St. 262;State v. Commercial Bank, 33 Miss. 474; Am. & Eng. Enc.Law, 294-303;People v. City of Spring Valley, 129 Ill. 169, 21 N. E. 843;State v. Southern Pac. R. Co., 24 Tex. 80.The facts are well pleaded.The real question, therefore, presented by the demurrer to the complaint is: Can an incorporated town establish itself into a single school district, excluding all territory beyond the corporate limits, which, together with the town, had before constituted the common school district?

1.The action involves a construction of the following sections: Sand. &H. Dig. § 7088: "Any incorporated city or town in this state, including the territory annexed thereto for school purposes, may be organized into and established as a single school district in the manner and with the powers hereinafter specified."

Section 7089: "Upon the written petition of twenty voters of said city or town, praying that the sense of the legal voters of said city or town may be taken on the adoption of the act for the regulation and government of the public schools therein, it shall be the duty of the mayor of such city or town, within five days after the presentation of such petition, to designate and fix a day not less than seven nor more than fifteen days distant, for holding an election in said city or town for that purpose, and also for the election by ballot, at the same time, of a board of six school directors for said city or town."

Section 7090: "The mayor shall cause notice of said election to be given by posting notices in at least five public places in said city or town, and by one insertion in such news papers as may be published in said city or town.The electors at said election shall have written or printed on their ballots `for the school law' and those opposed thereto shall have written or printed on their ballots, `against the school law,' and, if a majority of said ballots cast at said election shall be, `for school law,' then, and in that case only, shall such city or town be deemed and held to be a single school district under and in pursuance of this act."

Section 7106: "The title of all real estate and other property belonging, for school purposes, to any city or town organized into a separate school district under this act shall vest, and hereby is vested, in said city or town, as a school district, and shall be under the management and control of the board of school directors for said district as fully and completely as other school property belonging to said district."

Section 7107: "All school districts formed under and governed by this act shall be known by the name of the city or town constituting the district, with the words `school district of' prefixed thereto (as for example, school district of Little Rock)."

Section 7108: "The board of school directors of any district organized under this act shall pay and discharge all debts and liabilities lawfully incurred by the several school districts existing under previous law and embraced in the district organized under this act."

Section 7113: "The county court shall annex contiguous territory to single school districts, under the provisions of this act where a majority of the legal voters of said territory and the board of directors of said single district shall ask by petition, that the same shall be done."

What is the meaning of the phrase, "including the territory annexed thereto for school purposes," in the first section of the act of February 4, 1868?Prior to this act, there was no law for the annexation of territory to cities and towns for school purposes.The legislature therefore used the phrase in a prospective, not retrospective, sense.It would have been an incongruous use of words to speak of "including territory thereto annexed for school purposes," when none in fact had been annexed.Common school districts were not formed by first designating some incorporated city or town, and then joining to it rural territory, nor vice versa.It could not be said that the country was annexed to the city or town for school purposes, any more than that the city or town was annexed to the country for such purposes.Both were components of the district.Reference was had to territory to be annexed under the actthe legislature was then passing.The meaning was, when incorporated cities or towns were organized into single school districts under the act, such territory as should thereafter be annexed to them under the act was to be included in the districts so organized.It is the duty of courts, where words of doubtful import are used in an act, or where there are seemingly repugnant provisions, to so construe them that, when considered in connection with all other facts in pari materia, they shall together constitute a consistent and harmonious whole.Every word and every phrase must be retained, and given its true meaning and proper weight, where it is possible to do so, and ascertain and carry out the purpose of the legislature.Reynolds v. Holland, 35 Ark. 56;State v. Sewell, 45 Ark. 387;McFarland v. Bank, 4 Ark. 410; Sedg.St. & Const. Law, 19b et seq.;State v. Watts, 23 Ark. 304.

When the act is reviewed as a whole, the purpose of the legislature to allow cities and towns to establish themselves into single school districts, independent of the rural territory which had also been part of the common school district, is...