Clark v. Board of Trustees of Loper Line Consol. School Dist.
| Decision Date | 25 March 1918 |
| Docket Number | 19735 |
| Citation | 78 So. 145,117 Miss. 234 |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
| Parties | CLARK ET AL. v. BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF LOPER LINE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL DISTRICT |
APPEAL from the circuit court of Berry county, HON. PAUL B. JOHNSON Judge.
Petition for writ of mandamus by Davis and Zoola Clark against the Board of Trustees of the Loper Line Consolidated School District. From a judgment dismissing the petition, plaintiff appeals.
The facts are fully stated in the opinion of the court.
Judgment reversed, and cause remanded.
Currie & Currie, for appellants.
The demurrer is found on page 8 of the record and is a general demurrer. The question raised by the demurrer is whether the writ of mandamus will lie. The contention made upon the demurrer in the lower court was that the writ would not lie because the court had no jurisdiction over the subject-matter of the petition and that the petition presented matters that lay exclusively within the jurisdiction of the school authorities and boards of education in the state of Mississippi, and could be determined only by the school authorities and school boards.
The contention appears to us to be not only monstrous but pernicious and vicious--dangerous in the extreme. It would never do to adjudicate that as a matter of law the courts of the land have no jurisdiction to hear and determine a petition for the writ of mandamus under such a state of facts as is alleged and admitted to be true in the petition. There are many reasons which could be assigned why it should never be judicially determined that the courts of the state are without jurisdiction to entertain such a petition but the one all-sufficient reason is that the courts of the state under the law have jurisdiction.
It has been repeatedly held by this court that school districts in the state of Mississippi are quasi-corporations or bodies politic and that the trustees of such school districts are quasi-public officers. This question was raised and fully and earnestly briefed and argued in the late case of the Board of Trustees of the New Augusta Consolidated School District v The Burks Construction Company, and the court held in that case that the suit was properly brought against the board of trustees and that the court had jurisdiction to hear and determine the same. This is the settled law in this state. Surely the court has jurisdiction of the subject-matter of the petition because it alleges the unconstitutional and the unlawful infraction of the rights of the petitioners and a denial to them and their children of the right to attend the public school; a denial of one of the most valuable, most important, and most sacred rights vouchsafed to the citizen and the child--the denial of a right which lies at the very root of the public and general welfare and perpetuity of the state, the Government itself. The court will not shear itself of jurisdiction of the subject-matter of so important a thing. There is no statute expressly denying the courts jurisdiction of such a petition, and if such a statute should be enacted, we submit that it would be unconstitutional and void.
We submit this question to the court upon the very right and reason of the thing for its determination. We deem it unnecessary to cite authorities.
S. R. Hall, for appellees.
The demurrer to the complainant's petition was properly sustained by the trial judge; under the special allegations of the petition this cause could not be brought by mandamus proceedings. There has been great progress made in our educational affairs, much time and patience has been spent in carving out a school law to take care of this vital interest to the state. After years of thought by those trained and interested in the schools of our state chapter 125 of the Code of 1906, was adopted and amplified to meet the needs of this important matter, and among many other measures embodied therein is section 4524.
"The trustees may suspend or expel a pupil for misconduct and shall look after the interests of their schools, visit the same at least once during each month by one or more of their number, see that fuel is provided, protect the school property and care for same during vacation, and arbitrate difficulties or disputes between teachers and pupils; but either party, feeling aggrieved by their decision, may appeal to the county superintendent, and from him to the state board of education. And the trustees may make provisions for the comfort and welfare of the pupils; but the same shall not involve an expenditure of money not already appropriated for this purpose by the proper authorities.
Such a contention as here arises was contemplated thereby and a redress provided. The petition alleges that the children of the petitioners were wrongfully excluded from the school involved. If the appellants are right and petitioners entitled to the relief sought then the remedy of this section should have been applied.
1. Under this statute, if the petitioners wanted to contest the alleged wrongful exclusion of the children, they should have taken the matter up through the county superintendent of education.
2. If the finding of the superintendent was not satisfactory to them, then an appeal should have been taken to the state board of education.
The petition fails to allege that either of these rights were performed, in fact neither were. A rush is made to the court through this petition. Until the preliminary steps as provided by the statute referred to have been taken--this petition is premature, and should have been dismissed.
If our courts can be called upon in this wise to settle every difference that may and does arise pertaining to our schools, there would be no end to litigation. Our law makers saw fit to keep such question involved in this suit peculiarly in the hands of those most directly in touch with our school interest, and I think this court will so hold and wisely so.
The wisdom of the law is seen in placing for first decision a matter of this kind in the hands of the county superintendent of education, who, of course, is versed in the school law, and who is familiar with local situations, the school teachers, trustees and patrons, and whose opinion of such matters would be weighty. So, however, that an interested party could not be affected in his or her right by an error of such superintendent of education an appeal is provided in the state board of education. This board is far removed from local influence and could, and no doubt would, readily correct any error or wrong the county superintendent of education might cause or effect.
If the position of the appellant was maintained the wise provisions of the school law referred to would be made nugatory and obsolete. Under section 4524, Code of 1906, the superintendent of education and the state board of education were clothed with discretion in the matter here involved. Then, under the holding of this court the writ of mandamus could not affect them or control their acts. For this reason also this demurrer is well taken on this point, see: Vicksburg v. Rainwater, 47 Miss. 547; Clayton v. McWilliams, 49 Miss. 311; State Board v. West Point, 50 Miss. 638; Monroe Co. v. State, 63 Miss. 135.
It will thus be seen that the demurrer was rightfully sustained and the cause should be affirmed.
This is an appeal from a judgment sustaining a demurrer and dismissing a petition for a writ of mandamus. Here is the controversy:
Appellants set up in the petition for the writ: "That they are freeholders in and patrons of said Loper Line consolidated school district and of the...
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