Coffman v. Goree Independent School Dist.

• Decision Date: 14 October 1911
• Parties: COFFMAN et al. v. GOREE INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DIST. et al.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

Page 132

141 S.W. 132

COFFMAN et al. v. GOREE INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DIST. et al.

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas. Ft. Worth.

October 14, 1911.

Rehearing Denied November 11, 1911.

Appeal from District Court, Knox County; Jo. A. P. Dickson, Judge.

Action by E. M. Coffman and others against the Goree Independent School District and others. Judgment for defendants, and plaintiffs appeal. Affirmed.

B. D. Glasgow, Coombes & Coombes, and Jas. A. Stephens, for appellants. D. J. Brookreson, for appellees.

CONNER, C. J.

This appeal is from a judgment upon demurrer dismissing the petition of E. M. Coffman and others against the Goree independent school district seeking to restrain a threatened levy and collection of taxes upon the property of the petitioners.

No briefs have been filed, but the case was submitted upon an oral suggestion of fundamental error. It would perhaps be sufficient to say that an examination of the record has disclosed no such error and to dismiss the appeal for want of prosecution, but we have concluded to briefly notice the case and to affirm the judgment rather than to dismiss the appeal.

The petition avers the incorporation of the Goree independent school district and the election of the individual trustees named in the petition as school trustees, but alleges as grounds for the injunction sought that the school district had not been incorporated according to law, and that the trustees had not been properly elected, the argument of the petition being that the incorporation is invalid because, as shown by its field notes, it is not in a square, and because two of the trustees complained of had prior to the election for incorporation been nominated as trustees by the Goree Commercial Club, and thereafter had been permitted to serve as officers of the election, and, further, that the official ballot provided for the election did not have printed thereon at the top in large letters the words "Official Ballot"; that no legal returns of the election had been made; that proper certificate of the result had not been returned within the proper time, etc. The election of the trustees is declared to be illegal for the reason that the order therefor, the election returns thereof, and declared result all occurred prior to the filing of the ballots, poll lists, and tally sheets of the election for incorporation.

We are of the opinion that the demurrers were properly sustained. The objections to the incorporation of the independent school district and to the right of appellee trustees to...