Benvenue Parent-Teacher Ass'n v. Nash County Bd. of Ed.

• Decision Date: 19 November 1969
• Docket Number: PARENT-TEACHER,No. 16,16
• Citation: 275 N.C. 675,170 S.E.2d 473
• Parties: BENVENUEASSOCIATION, and Charles L. Johnson v. The NASH COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION and Nash County.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

Page 473

170 S.E.2d 473

275 N.C. 675

BENVENUE PARENT-TEACHER ASSOCIATION, and Charles L. Johnson v. The NASH COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION and Nash County.

No. 16.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

Nov. 19, 1969.

Don Evans, Rocky Mount, for plaintiff appellants.

I. T. Valentine, Jr., Nashville, for Nash County Board of Education.

James W. Keel, Jr., Rocky Mount, for Nash County.

LAKE, Justice.

When, pending an appeal to this Court, a development occurs, by reason of which the questions originally in controversy between the parties are no longer at issue, the appeal will be dismissed for the reason that this Court will not entertain or proceed with a cause merely to determine abstract propositions of law or to determine which party should rightly have won in the lower court. Kendrick v. Cain, 272 N.C. 719, 159 S.E.2d 33; In re Assignment of School Children, 242 N.C. 500, 87 S.E.2d 911; Savage v. Kinston, 238 N.C. 551, 78 S.E.2d 318; Cochran v. Rowe, 225 N.C. 645, 36 S.E.2d 75; Glenn v. Culbreth, 197 N.C. 675, 150 S.E. 332; Reid v. Norfolk Southern R.R., 162 N.C. 355, 78 S.E. 306; Wallace v. Town of North Wilkesboro, 151 N.C. 614, 66 S.E. 657; Wikel v. Board of Commissioners, 120 N.C. 451, 27 S.E. 117; Russell v. Campbell, 112 N.C. 404, 17 S.E. 149; Strong, N.C. Index 2d, Appeal and Error, § 9. Such a situation may arise where there has been a settlement and release of the plaintiff's claim following the judgment in the lower court (Kendrick v. Cain, supra), or where, by the repeal of a statute, an administrative board is deprived entirely of a power which the plaintiff sought to restrain it from exercising in alleged disregard of procedural requirements in effect when the judgment below was rendered (In re Assignment of School Children, supra), or where, pending his appeal from a judgment denying restitution to him of certain personal property, the appellant has come into its possession (Russell v. Campbell, supra), or a temporary restraining order having been dissolved, the transaction which the plaintiff sought to enjoin is completed pending the appeal (Wallace v. Town of North Wilkesboro, supra).

In the present action, the plaintiffs complained of and sought to enjoin the defendant Board of Education from doing two things: (1) Diverting a specific building at the Benvenue School from use in the education of pupils in grades 1 through 8 to use by the Nash Technical Institute for vocational education of adults; (2) the expenditure of county tax funds for the maintenance and unkeep of that building when so used. While the prayer of the complaint for injunctive relief against expenditures is stated in terms broad enough to include any expenditures for the operation of the 'Nash Technical Institute facility,' the only such facility to which reference is made in the complaint is that alleged to...