Cranor v. School Dist. No. 2 of Gentry County

• Decision Date: 15 June 1885
• Citation: 18 Mo.App. 397
• Parties: JOHN D. CRANOR, Respondent, v. SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 2, ETC., OF GENTRY COUNTY, Appellant.
• Court: Kansas Court of Appeals

18 Mo.App. 397

JOHN D. CRANOR, Respondent, v. SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 2, ETC., OF GENTRY COUNTY, Appellant.

Court of Appeals of Missouri, Kansas City.

June 15, 1885

APPEAL from Gentry Circuit Court, HON. JOHN C. HOWELL, J.

Affirmed.

The case is sufficiently stated in the opinion of the court. The court refused to look beyond the record proper, there being no proper bill of exceptions preserved at the trial.

B. F LUCAS, for the appellant.

I. The court erred in rejecting the evidence offered by defendant in support of defence set up in answer; and also in instructing that under the pleadings the plaintiff must recover and also in overruling motion for new trial, and in arrest of judgment. The relation between a school district and teacher is that of employer and employe; and the district, by its officers, has the same power to discharge him that a merchant has to discharge a clerk. It is not necessary that charges be preferred against him, or that a trial be had before board of directors. McCutchen v. Winslow, 55 Mo. 149; State ex rel. Bomefield v. Kupfurle, 44 Mo. 154.

II. The court erred in instructing the jury that under the pleadings the plaintiff must recover. In our opinion, the pleadings show a good defence to plaintiff's action.

III. The court erred in refusing to set aside the verdict and grant a new trial.

IV. The court erred in overruling motion in arrest of judgment, and in entering final judgment for plaintiff. The answer, upon its face, set out a good defence, and the action of the court, as to both, was unwarranted. The answer admits employment of plaintiff as teacher, but avers he was discharged for just cause, as for cruel and barbarous treatment of scholars, irregularity in attendance, using abusive language to scholars; and that he was paid for his services up to the time of his discharge.

H. C MCDOUGAL and CHAS. O. PATTON, for the respondent.

I. The only questions properly before the court are those arising upon the face of the record proper. No exceptions were filed to the overruling of the motion for new trial at the trial term. Having failed to except at that term, it could not be done at next term, on the overruling of motion in arrest of judgment. Clark v. Bullock, 65 Mo. 535; State v. Duckworth, 68 Mo. 156; State v. Ware, 69 Mo. 332. The doctrine that the continuance of a motion for new trial carries over with it until it is disposed of in the bill of exceptions, does not avail the defendant here. Henze v. R. R., 71 Mo. 633.

II. But upon the facts and law of the case, the same points involved here, and substantially the same issues, have been recently decided adversely to defendant by the supreme court of this state. Arnold v. School Dist., 78 Mo. 226.

III. There is no analogy between this and the ordinary contract between employer and employe. There the authority of the employer is ample and unquestioned. Here the statute simply gave the district board the power to employ; but not only gave it no power to dismiss, but lodged that power elsewhere--in the commissioner. Boards of education have only the powers conferred upon them by statute. The Ind. School Dist. Case, 33 Pa.St. 298, and cases cited; Dist. v. Dist. Burr Oak, 34 Iowa 306; Ohio v. Treas., etc., 22 Ohio St. 144; Sherlock v. Winnetka, 68 Ill. 530.

IV. The board could not impair the obligation of their own contract. Cooley's Constl. Lim. (3d Ed.) 362, and cases cited.

OPINION

PHILIPS P. J.

The appellant (defendant below) seeks a reversal of the judgment of the circuit court on the ground of alleged error in excluding certain evidence offered by defendant on the trial of this case. As this alleged error occurred in the progress of the trial, the only way the matter can be brought to the attention of this court for review is by a bill of exceptions, in which such occurrences must be preserved.

The record shows that this case was tried at the September term 1881, of the court, before the Hon. John H. Shanklin, as special judge. The motion for new trial was filed by defendant, and was overruled by the court, at said September term. A motion in arrest of judgment was also filed by defenda...