Brantley v. Lake Cormorant Consol. School Dist.

• Decision Date: 03 December 1928
• Docket Number: 27508
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: BRANTLEY v. LAKE CORMORANT CONSOL. SCHOOL DIST. [*]

119 So. 184

152 Miss. 235

BRANTLEY v. LAKE CORMORANT CONSOL. SCHOOL DIST. ^[*]

No. 27508

Supreme Court of Mississippi

December 3, 1928

Division B

SCHOOLS AND SCHOOL DISTRICTS. County school board, after school building burns, may relocate site to better serve convenience and welfare of district; location of school building prior to issuance of bond for construction thereof did not prevent relocation of site after building burned.

Where a consolidated school building burns, the county school board may relocate the site of the school building, when it would better serve the convenience and welfare of the district; and this is true, although bonds were issued for the construction of the building that burned, and such location was made prior to such bond issue.

HON GREEK L. RIC, Judge.

APPEAL from circuit court of De Soto county., HON. GREEK L. RICE Judge.

Application by the patrons of Lake Cormorant consolidated school district for relocation of school building at another site, resisted by certain other patrons. Judgment sustaining an order of the county school board relocating the school, and J. C. Brantley appeals. Affirmed.

Judgment affirmed.

Logan &amp Barbee, for appellant.

The De Soto county school board, after having selected the location for the schoolhouse and buildings of the Lake Cormorant consolidated school district, and an election having been held to ascertain the will of the voters in the district whether bonds in the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars should be issued and sold, and the proceeds from the sale of bonds having been used in erecting school buildings upon the location selected, was without authority or power, after the school buildings were destroyed by fire within a few months after they had been erected, to select a new site for the schoolhouse and buildings, where there was objection on the part of any resident taxpayer, patron of the school and qualified elector in said district. See section 4512 of the Code of 1906; Trustees of Walton School et al. v. Board of Supervisors of Covington County, 115 Miss. 117, 75 So. 833.

We submit that the section just referred to has no application to a consolidated school district where it has become a taxing district. There can be a consolidation of rural schools without the district becoming a taxing district. Section 4512 of the Code of 1906, which had been the law for many years applies only to common rural school districts. It was the duty of the county school board to meet annually before August 1st to define the boundaries of the school districts of the county outside of the separate school districts, or to make alterations therein, and to designate the location of the schoolhouse in each district, if not already located. However, if the view is taken that section 4512 is applicable to the instant case, it cannot avail appellees anything for the reason that the location of the schoolhouse of the Lake Cormorant consolidated school district had been designated.

Section 4512, Code of 1906, read in connection with section 108, chapter 283, Laws of 1924, shows conclusively that section 4512 has no application to a consolidated school district which is a taxing district. Board of Supervisors of Marshall County v. Brown et al., 111 So. 831.

Counsel for appellees will probably call the attention of the court to Sellier v. Dedeaux et al., 99 So. 439, wherein it was held that under section 4512, Code of 1906, the county school board was vested with the power to locate school buildings and to arrange school districts, and that whenever it was necessary to change the location for the convenience and welfare of the patrons of the district, such board has the power to change said site. This case is not in point, however, in the instant case, because while the school involved in the Sellier-Dedeaux case, supra, was a consolidated school, the original record will disclose that it is silent as to whether the Delisle consolidated public school district was a taxing district or not. If a consolidated school district is not a taxing district but simply two or more rural districts joined together and consolidated, undoubtedly the county school board has the right under section 4512, Code of 1906, to locate and if necessary, to re-locate the schoolhouse of the district. But when the property owners are to be taxed, bonds are to be issued, taxes levied for maintenance, we submit that the county school board has not the wide discretion to change boundaries, locate and re-locate school buildings, etc., that it has in cases like the Delisle consolidated public school in the Sellier-Dedeaux case. Rodgers v. Independent School District of Colfax (Ia.), 69 N.W. 544.

Holmes & Bowdre, for appellee.

Has the county school board authority to change the location of the schoolhouse of a consolidated school district after it has once been located by the school board, bonds issued, a schoolhouse built and occupied, and then destroyed by fire, when it is for the best interest, welfare and convenience of the district that the site be changed, said new location being made before other bonds are voted and issued to replace the destroyed building? Or must the new building be erected on the old site regardless of urgent reasons for having a new location?

Chapter 283 of the Laws of 1924, chapter 5, section 38, confers this authority on the school board of each county. This identical question was decided in Sellier v. Dedeaux et al., 134 Miss. 589, and is conclusive of the question involved in this case. See, also, Peets v. Martin, 135 Miss. 720.

Appellants undertake to minimize the decisive effect of the Sellier case, supra, by suggesting that the record is silent as to whether the...