City of Beaumont Ind. School Dist. v. Broadus, 5608.

• Decision Date: 05 June 1944
• Docket Number: No. 5608.,5608.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals
• Parties: CITY OF BEAUMONT INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DIST. et al. v. BROADUS et al.

Page 406

182 S.W.2d 406

CITY OF BEAUMONT INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DIST. et al. v. BROADUS et al.

No. 5608.

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas. Amarillo.

June 5, 1944.

Rehearing Denied September 11, 1944.

Appeal from District Court, Jefferson County; W. Tom Kenna, Judge.

Action of interpleader by David L. Broadus and others against the City of Beaumont Independent School District and the City of Beaumont, and the French Independent School District to determine which school district had the right to levy and collect taxes from plaintiffs. From a judgment in favor of the French Independent School District, the City of Beaumont and the City of Beaumont Independent School District appeal.

Reversed and remanded with instructions.

W. A. Tatum and H. R. Clayton, both of Beaumont, for appellants.

S. D. Bennett & J. B. Morris, both of Beaumont, for appellee French Independent School Dist.

John G. Tucker & David L. Broadus, both of Beaumont, for appellees David L. Broadus, Kitty G. Broadus, John G. Tucker, Robert H. Park and Parmer E. Lee.

HEARE, Justice.

This is a controversy between the City of Beaumont Independent School District and the City of Beaumont, on the one hand, and the French Independent School District, on the other hand, as to whether certain territory which has been annexed to the City of Beaumont as a municipality has thereby become a part of the City of Beaumont Independent School District and detached from the French Independent School District.

David L. Broadus and wife, by action of interpleader, complained that both the French Independent School District and the City of Beaumont Independent School District were levying school taxes against the plaintiffs' property and sought a decree of the court requiring the defendants to interplead among themselves to the end that it might be judicially determined which school district had the right to levy and collect taxes from the plaintiffs. Other property owners similarly situated intervened and all parties tendered the payment of taxes into court.

The properties involved are situated either in the Idylwood Estates Addition or the Emma Reed Addition, both being additions to the City of Beaumont, and having been annexed to the city by petitions of the residents of the subdivisions and by the enactment of ordinances by the city commission in 1939 and 1940. Prior to the date of these annexing ordinances, the properties were located within the bounds of the French Independent School District.

The City of Beaumont is a municipal corporation with more than five thousand inhabitants, acting under a home-rule charter adopted by the people of the city at an election held on December 30, 1919. The charter provides that the City of Beaumont shall constitute an independent school district subject to the general laws of the State applicable thereto, except where in conflict with the charter, and that the public schools shall be under the management and control of a board of trustees. The charter further provides for the extension of the municipal limits by written petition of a majority of the property owners who are citizens of the State and inhabitants of the affected territory adjoining the city and the passing of an annexing ordinance by the commission of the City of Beaumont, and also provides for the levy of additional taxes for school purposes.

The French Independent School District was incorporated by an Act of the Legislature in 1925, Sp.Laws 1925, c. 22.

The case was tried without a jury and judgment was entered in favor of French Independent School District. The court recited in the judgment "that the annexations to the City of Beaumont of said Emma Reed and Idylwood Estates Additions by the aforesaid ordinances did not and could not, as a matter of law, extend the boundaries of the City of Beaumont Independent School District into the territorial limits of the defendant, French Independent School District, so as to detach from said French Independent School District the said Emma Reed and Idylwood Estates Additions, and the Court further finds as a matter of law that to annex the Emma Reed and Idylwood Estates Additions to the City of Beaumont Independent School District, the procedure as set out in Article 2742e, Sec. 2, Acts 1929, 41st Leg., First C.S. p. 259, ch. 109 and Article 2742f, Sec. 1, Acts 1929, 41st Leg., First C.S., p. 106, ch. 47, must be followed and complied with, and that same has not been done." The City of Beaumont and the City of Beaumont Independent School District perfected an appeal to the Court of Civil Appeals for the Ninth Supreme Judicial District and the cause has, by order of the Supreme Court, been transferred to this Court for determination.

Opinion

The principal question involved in the determination of this case is whether Article 2804, R.C.S.1925, has been repealed by the Legislature. The appellee, French Independent School District, contends that it has been repealed by virtue of the enactment of Articles 2742e and 2742f, more specifically described in the above-quoted portion of the judgment, and which we shall hereinafter refer to as the 1929 Acts. The two 1929 Acts, above referred to, are now in effect and must be construed together. County School Trustees v. District Trustees, 137 Tex. 125, 153 S.W.2d 434; Board of School Trustees of Young County v. Bullock Common School District No. 12, Tex.Com.App., 55 S.W.2d 538.

Without repeating all the terms of the two applicable sections of the 1929 Acts, we here note that provision is made therein that in each county of this State the county board of trustees shall have the authority, when duly petitioned as provided in said Acts, to detach from, and annex to, any school district territory contiguous to the common boundary line of the two districts, provided the board of trustees of the district to which the annexation is to be made approves by majority vote the proposed transfer of territory. The Acts provide for further procedure if more than ten per cent of the district is involved, but that provision is not material to the case at bar. We now quote the repealing clause of the 1929 Acts: Chapter 47, Section 3. "All laws and parts of laws, General and Special, in conflict herewith are hereby repealed, and Sections 1, 2, 3, and 4 of Chapter 84, Acts of the 40th Legislature, First Called Session, and Article 2765, Revised Civil Statutes, 1925, are specifically repealed."

Article 2804, R.C.S. 1925, which the appellee contends has been repealed by the 1929 Acts, reads as follows:

"Whenever the limits of any incorporated city or town constituting an independent school district are so extended or enlarged as to embrace the whole or any part of any independent or common school district adjacent to such incorporated city or town, that portion of such adjacent district so embraced within the corporate limits of such incorporated city or town shall thereafter become a part of the independent school district constituted by such incorporated city or town.

"If within the portion of such district so embraced there should be situated any real property belonging to such district, such city or town may acquire the same upon such terms as may be mutually agreed upon between the governing body of such city or town and the authorities of such district.

"This article shall not apply where it shall be determined at an election held within such city or town by majority vote of those voting thereon that the territory or any portion thereof to be so embraced shall not thereby become a part of the independent school district constituted by such city or town, but shall be taken into the city limits for municipal purposes only, and shall remain for school purposes a portion of the adjacent independent or common school district as though said city limits had not been extended."

No election was held determining that the territory involved in this suit should not become a part of the independent school district constituted by the City of Beaumont.

Justice Critz, speaking for the Supreme Court in County School Trustees v. District Trustees, supra [137 Tex. 125, 153 S.W.2d 436], states: "In the beginning of this discussion we will say that this Court finds the school laws of this State very confusing and difficult of proper interpretation." To this eminently correct statement we add a fervent amen.

In order properly to discuss the issue before the Court, we deem it necessary to review the legislative history of Article 2804 and of the law giving municipalities authority to control the public free schools within their limits. In 1875, the Fourteenth Legislature enacted Chapter CIII, page 161 (8 Gammel's Laws of Texas 533), which authorized incorporated cities "to assume control of the public schools within their limits, to build school houses." It was provided in that Act that when such incorporated city did so assume "the control of the public education within its limits, the county board of directors may, when it is deemed expedient, redistrict the territory left under their control to suit the changed relations of the scholastic population." Acceptance of the provisions of the Act was evidenced by furnishing the county superintendent and the superintendent of public instruction certified copies of the resolutions of the city council by which the acceptance was made.

In 1879, the Sixteenth Legislature enacted Chapter LXVII, page 76, (8 Gammel's Laws of Texas 1376), which provided that "any city or town in this State may acquire the exclusive control of the public free schools within its limits." (Emphasis ours.) Provision was made for an election within the city to determine whether such exclusive control of the schools should be assumed by the city and whether the schools should be under the control of a board of trustees or the city council. If trustees were preferred, provision for their election was made. This Act was brought forward in the Revised Statutes of 1879 as Articles 3781...