Childs v. Board of Sup'rs of Webster County

• Decision Date: 19 May 1930
• Docket Number: 28696
• Citation: 157 Miss. 495,128 So. 338
• Parties: CHILDS et al. v. BOARD OF SUP'RS OF WEBSTER COUNTY
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

128 So. 338

157 Miss. 495

CHILDS et al. v. BOARD OF SUP'RS OF WEBSTER COUNTY

No. 28696

Supreme Court of Mississippi, Division B

May 19, 1930

(Division B.)

1. SCHOOLS AND SCHOOL DISTRICTS. Time. Validating act did not validate school district whose validity was in litigation on day act became effective; law knows no fraction of a day suit filed on day validating statute became effective was "pending litigation" (Laws 1928, Ex. Sess., ch 43).

Chapter 43, Laws of 1928, Extraordinary Session, does not validate a school district whose validity was in litigation on the day in which the act became effective. The laws knows no fraction of a day, and the fact that a bill in chancery was filed on the day the Statute became effective does not prevent such suit from constituting pending litigation affecting the case in litigation.

2. SCHOOLS AND SCHOOL DISTRICTS. School district declared void by chancery court without appeal was not legalized by subsequent general law validating school districts excepting those in litigation (Laws 1928, Ex. Sess., ch. 43).

Where a chancery court in a suit of injunction declares a school district void and no appeal is taken, a subsequent general act of the legislature validating all school districts, with the exception of those in litigation, does not make such district legal. The statute does not apply to such void district.

APPEAL from circuit court of Webster county, HON. JNO. F. ALLEN Judge.

Proceeding by the board of supervisors of Webster county for the levy of a tax upon the Spring Hill consolidated school district wherein C. H. Childs and others appeared and objected to the assessment. From a judgment of the circuit court affirming an order of the board of supervisors making the levy, the objectors appeal. Reversed and rendered.

Judgment reversed and remanded.

S. C. Mims, Jr., of Grenada, for appellants.

The 1928 act (Extraordinary Session of 1928, page 65) was passed by the legislature and approved by the Governor on the day appellants filed their injunction suit attacking the validity of the formation of this district. Therefore, as the legality of the formation of this district was being contested the day the act became a law, and as the law does not recognize fractional parts of a day, it comes within the exception provided for in the act, and the chancery court of Webster county so held.

Board v. Parks, 132 Miss. 752, 96 So. 466; Lamb v. Morgan, 152 Miss. 664, 120 So. 745; Swalm v. Sauls, 141 Miss. 515, 106, So. 775; Provident Life & Accident Ins. Co. v. Jemison, 153 Miss. 53, 120 So. 180.

McKeigney & Latham, of Eupora, for appellee.

The bill for injunction against the tax-collector was filed November 23, 1928, the day the act of the legislature took effect which cures the defects in the organization of Spring Hill consolidated school district. Chapter 43 of the Acts of the legislature enacted at the Extraordinary Session 1928, approved by the Governor, November 23, 1928, cures the defects in the organization of the consolidated school district.

OPINION

Ethridge, P. J.

The school board of Webster county, in May, 1929, attempted to create the Spring Hill consolidated school district. In the same month the board of supervisors entered an order reciting that a petition of the majority of the electors of the Spring Hill school district had been presented petitioning for a special levy of ten mills on taxable property for the Spring Hill school district, and declared its intention to make such levy at the proper time. At the November term of that year, it entered an order imposing a special levy of ten mills on all of the taxable property in the Spring Hill consolidated school district.

On the 23d day of November of the same year, the appellants filed a bill in the chancery court of Webster county challenging the...