Board of Education v. City of St. Louis

• Citation: 184 S.W. 975,267 Mo. 356
• Decision Date: 30 March 1916
• Docket Number: No. 17596.,17596.
• Parties: BOARD OF EDUCATION OF CITY OF ST. LOUIS v. CITY OF ST. LOUIS et al.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Missouri

184 S.W. 975

267 Mo. 356

BOARD OF EDUCATION OF CITY OF ST. LOUIS v. CITY OF ST. LOUIS et al.

No. 17596.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 1.

March 30, 1916.

Appeal from St. Louis Circuit Court; J. Hugo Grimm, Judge.

Action by the Board of Education of the City of St. Louis against the City of St. Louis and another. From a judgment for the plaintiff, defendants appeal. Affirmed.

William E. Baird, of St. Louis, for appellants. Robert Burkham, of St. Louis, for respondent.

BROWN, C.

This suit was instituted April 11, 1912, against the defendant city and Stephen H. Gilmore, its supervisor of plumbing, to obtain an injunction restraining them from interfering with work in course of construction under contract for a new school building in said city to be known as the Horace Mann School. The contract provided for a system of vents from the water-closets known as "a continuous venting system, doing away with all local vents to the fixtures"; while a regulation of the board of public improvements of the city of St. Louis provided for a different system, requiring "sewer, soil, waste, and ventilation pipes to be arranged and constructed to admit of a free circulation of air from the fresh air inlet to each fixture trap and through the roof." It charged that the defendants threatened to apply the ordinances and rules of the city, which are fully set out, to this work, and cause the arrest of any and all of plaintiff's agents, servants, or employés who may go upon the premises under plaintiff's direction to prosecute said plumbing work, on the charge of violating said ordinances, rules, and regulations. There is no question raised as to reasonableness of the ordinances of the city or regulations of its board of public improvements, nor as to whether either system of venting is superior to the other, but the case is presented and discussed upon the broad proposition as to whether or not the board of education, in this particular, is subject to the ordinances and regulations of the city in this respect. A general demurrer to the petition was sustained, and, defendants declining to further plead, final judgment was rendered granting the injunction, and the case is here upon the defendants' appeal.

Section 26 of article 3 of the charter then in force provided, among other things, that the mayor and assembly shall have power, within the city, by ordinance not inconsistent with the Constitution or any law of this state or of this charter, to do the following things: In clause 2, to construct and keep in repair all bridges, streets, sewers, and drains, and to regulate the use thereof; in clause 12, to provide for the safe construction, inspection, and repairs of all private and public buildings within the city; and in clause 14, to pass all ordinances not inconsistent with the provisions of the charter or the laws of the state as may be expedient in regard to the peace, good government, health, and welfare of the city.

It also provides (section 3, art. 4) for a board of public improvements to consist of an elective president and five commissioners with certain prescribed powers, and adds the following provision (section 42):

"The municipal assembly shall provide by ordinance such additional duties of and requirements from the board of public improvements and its several members as it may deem necessary, and for the appointment by them of such assistants and employés as the demands of the several departments may require."

It was under these powers and ordinances passed in pursuance of them that the defendant superintendent of plumbing was appointed, and the rule related to the ventilation of water-closets which the city is now attempting to apply to the Horace Mann School was made.

When the framers of the present Constitution conferred upon the freeholders of the city the power to make their present charter, they provided with the most careful foresight (section 23, art. 9) that:

"Such charter and amendments shall always be in harmony with and subject to the Constitution and laws of Missouri, except only that provision may be made for the graduation of the rate of taxation for city purposes in the portions of the city which are added thereto by the proposed enlargement of its boundaries."

In the same Constitution, and in pursuance of the uniform policy of the state from the beginning, it was provided (section 1, art. 11) that:

"A general diffusion of knowledge and intelligence being essential to the preservation of the rights and liberties of the people, the General Assembly [not the freeholders of the city of St. Louis] shall establish and maintain free public schools for the gratuitous instruction of all persons in this state between the ages of six and twenty years."

It was in obedience to this constitutional mandate that the act of 1897 (Laws 1897, p. 220), as amended by the act of May 28, 1909 (Laws 1909, p. 846), under which the public schools of the city of St. Louis have ever since been operated, was enacted. It provided that:

"Every city in this state now having or which may hereafter have five hundred thousand inhabitants or over, together with the territory now within its limits, or which may in the future be included by any change thereof, shall be and constitute...