Clement v. Everest

• Decision Date: 27 January 1874
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court
• Parties: Seth N. Clement and others v. David O. Everest and others

29 Mich. 19

Seth N. Clement and others v. David O. Everest and others

Supreme Court of Michigan

January 27, 1874

Heard January 13, 1874; January 14, 1874

Appeal in Chancery from Van Buren Circuit.

Bill to restrain collection of school taxes. Complainant appeals. Decree reversed and perpetual injunction awarded.

Decree reversed, with costs of both courts, and a perpetual injunction awarded.

Alfred J. Mills and Arthur Brown, for complainants.

Severens & Boudeman, for defendants.

Campbell J. Graves, Ch. J., and Cooley, J., concurred. Christiancy J., did not sit in this case.

OPINION

Campbell J.

The bill in this cause was filed to restrain the collection of school taxes against the lands of complainants, levied on behalf of school district number three, in Pine Grove, on the ground that the township board of school inspectors had detached the lands in question from that district, and restored them to district number two, to which they had belonged before district number three was organized.

Defendants resist the bill on two grounds: First, that the action of the township board was illegal; and second, that it was suspended by appeal proceedings. A third objection was made, that the bill does not offer to pay the amount of taxes which would have been legally chargeable on behalf of district number two. But as the bill shows precisely the amount of the excess, and only asks to have that restrained, the objection is without force.

The proceedings to appeal under the provisions relied on upon both sides are required by the statute to be taken in sixty days. A bond is required to be filed, signed by one appellant with two sufficient sureties, "to be approved by the clerk of said board or boards of school inspectors, or by any justice of the peace of the township."--Comp. L., §§ 3734-5. A bond was drawn up in due form and presented to the clerk, who, it is claimed, refused to approve it because it was not witnessed. It is now claimed that this was a frivolous objection, made in bad faith and for vexation, and that the bond must be regarded as sufficient.

The statute is positive in requiring the bond to be approved, and we do not see how it can be dispensed with. If the clerk were the only person authorized to approve it, there would certainly be great hardship in subjecting parties to his caprices, but whether courts could remedy the mischief is another question which we need not discuss. The appellants could have gone before any justice of the peace, and could not, therefore, have been damnified by the clerk's conduct. The appeal was not complete, and did not affect the proceeding, whether the action was appealable or not.

Two reasons are given for holding the change of districts void: First, that the inspectors were interested; and second, that they acted without proper notice.

There are some cases where the action of interested parties is forbidden by the principles of law. Public officers cannot contract with themselves as individuals, and cannot act judicially upon their own interests. They cannot usually occupy two conflicting relations.

But the interest which these officers had was that of tax-payers and residents, and the business they were engaged in was the public administrative business of their districts and township, in which no man could be found who was not interested in a similar way.

The degree of interest is not regarded in cases of disability. Any tangible interest prevails. If interest could prevent men from performing these local duties, they could not be performed at all. The policy of a republican government places all local interests in the hands of the electors most deeply concerned, and requires them to choose interested agents and representatives. The disabling doctrine has no application, and can have none, to those administrative acts which are public, and not with or between private parties. Such action is the action of the public, for itself and on its own behalf, and there are in law no conflicting interests which can be recognized as belonging to the individual...