Donald v. Stauffer

• Decision Date: 14 December 1925
• Docket Number: 25305
• Citation: 106 So. 357,140 Miss. 752
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: DONALD et al. v. STAUFFER et al. [*]

106 So. 357

140 Miss. 752

DONALD et al. v. STAUFFER et al. ^[*]

No. 25305

Supreme Court of Mississippi

December 14, 1925

Division B

1. SCHOOLS AND SCHOOL DISTRICTS. Taxpayer may not have trustees enjoined from illegally discharging one teacher and employing another.

Though trustees of a school district in discharging one teacher and employing another are acting illegally, yet they are acting within the scope of their duties, and so cannot be enjoined at suit of a taxpayer.

2. SCHOOLS AND SCHOOL DISTRICTS. Acts of trustees having color of office none the less legal because of their illegal election.

Though trustees of a school district be illegally elected, yet being in charge of the offices and performing the functions thereof, they have color of right to perform their official duties, and their acts and contracts are none the less legal.

HON. C L. LOMAX, Chancellor.

APPEAL from chancery court of Tallahatchie county HON. C. L. LOMAX, Chancellor.

Suit by G. L. Donald and others against J. F. Stauffer and others trustees. Bill dismissed, and complainants appeal. Affirmed.

Affirmed.

Cutter & Smith and Hayes, Stingily & Whitten, for appellants.

If the action of the trustees in this case is sustained, then notwithstanding adjudications to a contrary effect, teachers and superintendents of schools may be summarily dismissed, according to the whims of any board of trustees of any school in the state, and contracts entered into by and between teachers and superintendents and trustees of schools will be mere scraps of paper without binding effect, morally or legally. For, while Campbell is not a party, yet the validity of his contract must be determined. As a matter of law the contract made and entered into with Campbell is challenged. The contract was for one year, authorized by section 126, paragraph 8, chapter 283, Laws of 1924, and by paragraph 10 of the same section of the same act. It is regular in every respect.

The board had a right to elect at its February meeting before the new men came into office. Yerger v. State, 91 Miss. 802; Moon v. Schools, City of South Bend, 98 N.E. 153. The statute does not attempt to fix the time but leaves the matter to the discretion of the board. Gates v. Smith (Ark.), 10 L. R. A. (N. S.) 186.

The third ground of the demurrer challenges the complainants' right to maintain this bill because they have an adequate remedy at law. It must be that the defendant in writing the demurrer confuses Mr. Campbell's rights with the rights of these taxpayers. Certainly, the taxpayers have no remedy at law. The learned counsel has never been able to point out what remedy of law they had. We challenge him to do so now.

But even if this were a suit by Campbell, though it is not and no court on earth has a right to assume that it is on the face of these pleadings, he had a right, if not as superintendent, certainly as a teacher, which he could go into a court of equity to protect and to protect which he had no remedy at law. Brown v. Owen, 75 Miss. 319; Whitman v. Owen, 76 Miss. 783. However, the court's attention is re-called to the fact that this is not a suit by Mr. Campbell, but is a suit by some thirty taxpayers of the school district.

The demurrer in the fourth place challenges the right of the complainants because, the defendants say, the teacher and superintendent has been discharged already and, therefore, the court cannot enjoin the doing of a thing which has been done. In such case, of course, the injured party is necessarily left to his remedy at law.

In this case, the teacher had not been discharged. The superintendent had not been discharged. Mr. Campbell had not been discharged for the reason that the board of trustees of the Tutwiler separate district is a board of inferior and limited jurisdiction, with no power except such as is expressly granted to it, or necessarily implied, to give force and effect to some expressed power. This expressed power had been exercised. A contract had been entered into with Campbell the superintendent and Campbell the teacher. He had acquired rights under that contract. The board of trustees had exhausted its power. It did not have under the law the power which it attempted to exercise, that is, the power to discharge Campbell. If, of course, it did not have the power, it was usurping a power. Any exercise of a usurped power is void. So Campbell, in fact, had not been discharged, and could not be discharged except in strict compliance with the statutory law governing such cases. Paragraph 26, section 23, chapter 283, Laws of 1924, contains the only expressed power for the discharge of teachers in a public school.

It is true that it is provided in this section that "the county superintendent may suspend or remove a teacher or trustee from office except in separate school districts." This exception, however, goes only to the office which may exercise the power under the general scheme of the school law, in separate school districts; the trustees are given the powers of county superintendent. The causes for which a teacher may be suspended or discharged, and the procedure which must be followed in discharging a teacher remains precisely the same. This control of separate school districts is vested in the trustees by section 125, chapter 283, Laws of 1924. Nowhere is a board given an arbitrary power to discharge without cause. If these two sections of the act do not give power to discharge, it has no such authority expressly delegated to it. In that case, the law of contracts would apply. Under that law even, one may not always be discharged arbitrarily without cause. He could be so discharged if he had no right which could not be compensated for in damages; but, if he has, he would have a right to specific performance. In the case of a licensed teacher, there are rights which cannot be compensated for in damages--a teacher has the right to teach under his contract, and to invoke the remedies of law to enable him to so do. Owen case cited supra. 75 Miss. 319; 76 Miss. 783.

It follows that, under either view of the case, whether under the section referred to or under the general law of contracts, the board could not discharge Campbell. It, therefore, had not done so. Attempting to do so, it was attempting to usurp authority. The usurpation would have caused the taxpayers to be burdened with unlawful taxation. They, therefore, had a right to an injunction.

In discussing the first ground of demurrer, we should assume that if there appears on the face of the bill no contract executed, or if the contract was void for any reason, or if the taxpayers have no right to bring this suit, that the demurrer ought to have been sustained. We have already discussed the proposition as to the right of the taxpayer. Our court has never adjudged a case with exactly the same state of facts, but the elementary right of taxpayers in such case; that is, to protect themselves against usurpation of authority and against unlawful expenditure of money to be raised by taxation, is to be taken as well settled by our court. Hobbs v. Germany, 94 Miss. 469 at 476.

When rights of a citizen are involved, he is not limited to statutory appeal in the school administration, but the courts are open to him. Moreau v. Grandich, 114 Miss. 560.

Since the officers of this school are the parties to the wrong complained of and since the taxpayers are liable to be plundered and the property-holders on whom the loss will eventually fall are without effectual remedy, the citizens and property-holders of the school district bring this suit. Rowez v. Pierce, 75 Miss. 846. "A resident taxpayer is not without legal capacity to maintain for himself and on behalf of the village an action against the municipal authorities to enjoin the unauthorized expenditure of funds of the village." Pierce v. Hagans, 86 N.E. 519, 36 L. R. A. (N. S.) 1.

An injunction may be had against a tax levied by the board of supervisors in a matter over which it had no jurisdiction. Browning v. Mathews, 73 Miss. 343. We submit that these complaining taxpayers had a right as such to enjoin unlawful expenditure of money.

We respectfully submit that under the well established law in Mississippi and elsewhere the complainants have resorted to the only course open to them under the law; that they have no remedy at law; and their only remedy is the manifest remedy of injunction to prevent the new board from dissipating the money in the treasury of the district, which they themselves have paid in, and which if exhausted and dissipated, they in the last analysis must suffer therefor.

F. H. Montgomery, for appellees.

I. There is no equity in the face of the bill. As trustees, it was not only the privilege but the duty of the defendants to select a superintendent for their school who was fit and suitable. In this matter, the judgment and discretion of the trustees cannot be called into question or inquired into by the courts at the instance of private citizens, even though taxpayers and patrons of the school. The individual taxpayer and patron of a school has no vested right to the employment of any particular person as superintendent. All that he can require is that the school be maintained and kept open under the charge of proper, qualified and competent instructors, as provided by law, and that his children be afforded equal educational facilities with others residing within the school district. He has no authority in law or equity to compel the employment or retention of any particular person or superintendent. On the other hand, this power has been committed to a board of trustees as the properly constituted agencies of society.

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