Crow v. Burnet Independent School Dist.

• Decision Date: 17 July 1957
• Docket Number: No. 10507,10507
• Citation: 304 S.W.2d 439
• Parties: H. E. CROW et al., Appellants, v. BURNET INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT et al., Appellees.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

Page 439

304 S.W.2d 439

H. E. CROW et al., Appellants, v. BURNET INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT et al., Appellees.

No. 10507.

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas, Austin.

July 17, 1957.

Rehearing Denied Aug. 7, 1957.

James A. Steele, Hammond & Hammond, Burnet, L. Hamilton Lowe, Austin, for appellants.

J. C. Hinsley, Austin, Bryce A. Taylor, Burnet, for appellees.

HUGHES and GRAY, Justice.

A plea to the jurisdiction of the Trial Court having been sustained judgment of dismissal was rendered without a trial on the merits. We must, therefore, examine the pladings of appellants, accepting as true their allegations and determine therefrom and the law applicable thereto the validity of the Court's action in sustaining a plea to the jurisdiction.

Briefly this is a suit against the Burnet Independent School District, Pioneer Abstract and Title Company and others by persons ¹ owning real and personal property within such District and subject to taxation by it for the purpose of enjoining the execution of a contract made between the District and the Pioneer Abstract and Title Company ² on the ground, among others, that such contract is void because it is an attempt on the part of the District to authorize deficit spending for the reason that no funds are or will be available to the District for the payment of its monetary obligations under the contract in accordance with its terms.

The jurisdictional plea was to the effect that the matters pleaded by appellants were 'peculiarly within the jurisdiction and discretion of the Board of Trustees of the Burnet Independent School District and are matters of which this court or any other court cannot take jurisdiction until after the plaintiffs or other aggrieved parties have taken administrative appeals to higher school authorities as provided by the Statutes of the State of Texas and have exhausted such appeals, * * *'

It was stipulated that appellants had not appealed from the action of the District in the premises to any higher school authorities.

Appellants' petition is lengthy and is somewhat complicated but it is sufficient for our purposes to say that it fully pleads lack of current funds with which to pay the Abstract Company for the services contracted for and that execution of the contract would result in deficit spending, the petition particularly alleging that the school district would not have funds available during the 1957-1958 fiscal year to pay the $6,600 to the Abstract Company as contracted.

Appellees say in their brief that

'* * * this proceeding has been changed from one 'to restrain the enforcement and carrying out of a purported contract * * * on the ground that the contract is void,' to 'a suit to restrain the illegal expenditure of School funds under a void contract.' The question here is not whether a suit to restrain expenditure of School funds under a void contract may be maintained prior to resort to School authorities for redress, as claimed by appellants, but whether, in the state of appellants' pleadings below, a suit to restrain the enforcement of a contract that would otherwise be valid can be maintained on the inconclusive allegations there would not be future revenues that could be applied to the payment of the cost of such contract or current revenues that could be so applied, where no effort had been made by the plaintiffs in such suit to take appeals to higher school authorities from action of district trustees in making such contract.'

We do not quite understand the meaning of the word 'inconclusive' as used by appellees in the above paragraph. If it is meant that the allegations referred to must be proved upon trial, then we understand. If, however, it is meant that we or the Court below need not accept such allegations in passing upon the plea to the jurisdiction then we do not understand this to be a correct statement of law. 11 Tex.Jur. p. 720; Hale v. McMurrey, Tex.Civ.App., Beaumont, 22 S.W.2d 499, writ ref. This case involved a school controversy dismissed by the Trial Court for want of jurisdiction on the theory that administrative recourse had not been pursued. This judgment was reversed because the petition alleged facts which 'if true' showed the school authorities to be acting without 'power or authority.'

It is our opinion that the Trial Court erred in sustaining the plea to the jurisdiction. We will refer to the decisions supporting this conclusion after we have discussed the authorities cited by appellees in support of the judgment. These cases are, as we read the brief: Hinojosa v. San Isidro Independent School District, Tex.Civ.App., San Antonio, 273 S.W.2d 656, Mission Independent School District v. Diserens, 144 Tex. 107, 188 S.W.2d 568, 161 A.L.R. 877, and State ex rel. Nevills v. Sanderson, Tex.Civ.App., Waco, 88 S.W.2d 1069, 1070.

Sanderson was in the nature of quo warranto to remove from office a common school district trustee on the alleged grounds that he had not paid his poll tax and was unable to read or write English intelligibly. The Court, Justice Alexander writing, pointed out that our statutes gave to the county school superintendent the specific authority to determine, in the first instance, whether an elected trustee is qualified to act and in sustaining a judgment dismissing the suit for failure of the petition to allege that resort had been made to proper school authorities said:

'It is a well-established rule that in all matters pertaining to the administration of school laws involving questions of fact as distinguished from pure questions of law resort must first be had to the school authorities and the method of appeal there provided for exhausted before the courts will entertain jurisdiction of a complaint with reference to such matters. * * * His appointment was not wholly void, but its validity depended on a question of fact--whether he could read and write and whether he had paid his poll tax. The duty of first determining these questions of fact was placed with the county superintendent, and, until his jurisdiction had been invoked and a ruling had thereon, the courts were without jurisdiction to act in the premises.'

Warren v. Sanger Ind. School District, 116 Tex. 183, 288 S.W. 159, later noticed, and other authorities are cited in support of such statement.

Diserens was a suit by the school district to enjoin a teacher from breaching the negative provision in her contract not to teach elsewhere during tis duration. No prior appeal to school agencies was made. The Court [144 Tex. 107, 188 S.W.2d 570] after quoting from the opinion of Justice Alexander, supra, said 'No circumstances have been suggested, nor any do we perceive, which bring this controversy within that class of cases where resort to school authorities for administrative relief is required before application may be made to the courts.' Warren v. Sanger, supra, and other authorities are cited.

This case was tried upon an agreed statement of facts.

Hinojosa was a suit by an employee of the school district against the district for damages for wrongful discharge. A plea in abatement was sustained on the ground that resort had not been first made to school authorities. In affirming the Court of Civil Appeals said :

'The question of whether or not appellant was rightfully dismissed from his position with the school district obviously involves a question of fact. It was therefore necessary that appellant appeal to the proper school authorities before filing a suit in the district court. Bruce v. Stilwell, 5 Cir., 206 F.2d 554.'

Earlier in its opinion the Court had said:

'It appears well settled that prior to 1949, an employee of a school district, whose contract of employment was allegedly wrongfully terminated, was required to apply to the school authorities for relief before filing his suit in the district court. Bear v. Donna Independent School District, Tex.Civ.App., 74 S.W.2d 179; Moore., etc. v. Frio County Board of School Trustees, Tex.Civ.App., 90 S.W.2d 288; Heaberlin v. Joaquin Ind. School District, Tex.Civ.App., 95 S.W.2d 1339.'

The three cases cited are all school teacher cases. As to teachers Art. 2749, V.A.C.S., provides that school trustees 'shall have the power to employ and dismiss teachers; but in case of dismissal, teachers shall have the right of appeal to the county and State Superintendents.' The appeals mentioned are mandatory before resort can be made to the courts. Harkness v. Hutcherson, 90 Tex. 383, 38 S.W. 1120.

From Bruce v. Stilwell, cited by the Court in Hinojosa, we quote :

'It is undoubtedly true that the laws of Texas provide in certain instances that orders and proceedings of the local board can only by questioned by appeal to higher school authorities. But when the Board of Trustees acts without authority of law in such a manner as to deny colored students the advantages accorded to others in like situation and this is established, as here, by admitted facts the injured persons' right of access to the courts is absolute and complete. Cf. Carter v. School Board of Arlington County, 4 Cir., 182 F.2d 531; State Line Consolidated School Dist. No. 6 of Parmer County v. Farwell [Independent] School Dist., Tex.Com.App., 48 S.W.2d 616.

'The rule is well-established in Texas that in all matters pertaining to the administration of school laws involving pure questions of law as contradistinguished from questions of fact immediate resort to the courts is proper. Mission Independent School District v. Diserens, 144 Tex. 107, 188 S.W.2d 568, 161 A.L.R. 877; Wilson v. Abilene Independent School District, Tex.Civ.App., 190 S.W.2d 406; State ex rel. Nevills v. Sanderson, Tex.Civ.App., 88 S.W.2d 1069. Here, the question becomes one of law for the court since the allegations of the complaint as to discrimination, which are denied in the answer, must be taken an true on the motion to dismiss. Hilliard v. Brown, 5 Cir., 170 F.2d 397. We hold that the trial court erred in dismissing the...