Buchanan v. School Dist. of City of Hannibal

• Decision Date: 08 March 1887
• Citation: 25 Mo.App. 85
• Parties: HENRY C. BUCHANAN ET AL., Respondents, v. SCHOOL DISTRICT OF THE CITY OF HANNIBAL ET AL., Appellants.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

25 Mo.App. 85

HENRY C. BUCHANAN ET AL., Respondents, v. SCHOOL DISTRICT OF THE CITY OF HANNIBAL ET AL., Appellants.

Court of Appeals of Missouri, St. Louis.

March 8, 1887

APPEAL from the Hannibal Court of Common Pleas, HON. THEODORE BRACE Judge.

Affirmed.

THOMAS H. BACON, for the appellants: The writ should have been denied. A change of site of a graded school is not among the subjects of a popular vote. Rev. Stat., sects. 7031, 7146, 7153; Sess. Acts, 1881, p. 99; Sess. Acts, p. 1883, 185.

ANDERSON & FOREMAN, for the respondents.

OPINION

ROMBAUER J.

Upon the petition of the plaintiffs, who are resident citizens and taxpayers of the Hannibal school district, a preliminary injunction was granted against the defendant district and its directors, restraining them from changing the site of the present school house in South Hannibal, and from proceeding further in any contracts for the purpose of a new site, and the erection of a new school building thereon.

The petition states, among other things, that the defendant school district is organized under the general statutes of the state, providing for the organization and regulation of the public schools in cities, towns, and villages; that the system of instruction given in the public schools in the district is a graded system; that the number of children in the district being too numerous to attend any one particular place or school, the district had been sub-divided for some time past into sub-districts, one of which is the South Hannibal district or division, in which district a school house had been erected fifteen years ago or more, on the present site; that, in November, 1884, the directors of the district submitted to its qualified voters the question whether they should have power to borrow an amount of money not to exceed forty thousand dollars, for the purpose of erecting three new school buildings in the entire school district, and at said election, by the requisite affirmative vote, were duly authorized to borrow such sum for the purpose; that it was duly published and known to the voters that one of these buildings was to be erected in the South Hannibal sub-division, but no particular site in said district was canvassed or mentioned; that the directors had negotiated for the sale of the forty thousand dollars bonds of said district, thus authorized, and are now proceeding to change the site of the South Hannibal sub-district school house, and to build a costly school building on the new site thus selected, which is to be used exclusively, instead of the present site and school building in said sub-division, without authority of law; that the directors have entered into a contract for the purchase of the new school site, and into a contract for the erection of the new school building, both contracts as yet being executory, no money having been paid or work done thereunder. The petition then recites a number of special objections, the only material one of which is, that the site thus selected is further removed from the center of the population of the district than the present site, and further away from its geographical center.

The...