Eden Tp. School Dist. v. Carroll County Bd. of Ed.
| Decision Date | 10 November 1970 |
| Docket Number | No. 53986,53986 |
| Citation | 181 N.W.2d 158 |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
| Parties | EDEN TOWNSHIP SCHOOL DISTRICT and the Board of Directors thereof, Appellees, v. The CARROLL COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION, and Warren Conner, J. Harold Rice, Walter Koster, Maurice Campbell, and C. M. Johnson, as Members of said Board, and Lyle Tenold, Secretary thereof, Defendants, Warren Conner, Maurice Campbell and C. M. Johnson, Appellants, Ray Weitl, Intervenor-Appellant. TEMPLETON INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT and the Board of Directors thereof, Appellees, v. The CARROLL COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION, and Warren Conner, J. Harold Rice, Walter Koster, Maurice Campbell, and C. M. Johnson, as Members of said Board, and Lyle Tenold, Secretary thereof, Defendants, Warren Conner, Maurice Campbell and C. M. Johnson, Appellants, Ray Weitl, Intervenor-Appellant. Maurice EICKMAN, et al., Plaintiffs, v. The DISTRICT COURT OF CARROLL COUNTY, Iowa, Honorable A. J. Braginton, Judge, Defendants. |
Richard H. Crandall, Manning, Bernard L. Willis, Lake City, T. G. Garfield, Ames, for appellants Warren Conner, Maurice Campbell, C. M. Johnson and Ray Weitl, and for plaintiffs in certiorari.
Wunschel & Schechtman, Carroll, for appellees, and for defendants in certiorari.
Two matters involving validity of school attachments made in Carroll county pursuant to chapter 275 Iowa Code, 1966 have been consolidated for review in this court. One relates to the appeals from the Carroll district court's ruling overturning attachments made of two non-high school districts by the Carroll board of education. The district court held the attachments void as arbitrary, capricious, unreasonable and an abuse of discretion. It issued a permanent injunction restraining the board, its members and secretary and the Carroll county auditor from taking any further action in connection with these attachments. The other is original certiorari challenging legality of the court's action in the same litigation.
Reorganization of schools in Carroll county has been going on for many years. Some background of the events leading to the present litigation is appropriate. In 1958 a county plan was adopted by the Carroll county board of education for reorganization of schools within the county. In late 1965 approximately 30 independent school districts in Carroll county were not maintaining high school grades. In the following years many of these districts were attached to districts maintaining 12 grades.
A portion of Eden township had been placed in one of these attachments in the Carroll community school district. Attachments of various other areas in the county during this period to the Carroll community school district were approved by the state board of education. Some proposed attachments to other districts also maintaining 12 grades were disapproved.
In August 1968 the Carroll county board of education pursuant to Code section 275.1 made attachments of the two non-high school districts--the remaining portion of Eden township and Templeton independent--to the Manning community school district which was maintaining 12 grades. After the attachments were approved by the state board of public instruction the Eden and Templeton districts and their boards of directors appealed to the Carroll district court from the action of the county board of education. Defendants were the county board of education, its five members and secretary.
In Eden's appeal to the district court Ray Weitl as a member of the Eden township school district's board of directors intervened allied with the county board and the members thereof and moved to dismiss that appeal on the ground Eden's appeal was illegal and not sanctioned by a properly called special meeting, as he, a board member, did not receive a statutory notice thereof. Weitl's application for separate adjudication of law points under rule 105, Rules of Civil Procedure, was submitted before trial. Evidence was taken in respect to the ground asserted in his petition of intervention. The court ruled his claim was without merit.
The appeals from the attachments were consolidated for trial in the district court resulting in the decree mentioned.
Warren Conner, Maurice Campbell and C. M. Johnson as individual members of the five-man board of education of Carroll county when appeal to the district court was initiated by Eden and Templeton districts and intervenor Weitl appeal to us from the district court's ruling. Appellants assign as errors relied on, with some modification, illegalities of the defendant judge urged as a basis for sustaining the writ in the certiorari proceeding. These will be considered later.
A large number of parties allegedly interested in the controversy together with the Manning community school district and members of its board of directors petitioned this court for writ of certiorari to review action of the Carroll district court, Judge A. J. Braginton, in holding void attachments made by the county board of education of Eden and Templeton districts to the Manning community school district.
We directed the writ be issued and that the return thereto should also serve as the record on which the appeals of Conner, Campbell, Johnson and Weitl should be submitted to this court. It was also ordered that the printed briefs and arguments in the certiorari proceeding should also serve, so far as applicable, as the briefs and arguments on which their appeals from the judgment of the district court in the consolidated actions should be submitted. Right was granted to any party to supplement the brief and argument in the certiorari proceeding for submission of the appeals from the Carroll district court.
Attachments of other districts in the county made at the same time by the county board of education to the Carroll community district are not involved in either of the matters before us.
I. The Eden and Templeton districts moved to dismiss the appeals to this court from the district court's decree. Their motion is in two divisions. In the first, appellees move to dismiss the appeals of Conner, Campbell and Johnson. In the second, they move to dismiss the appeal of the intervenor Ray Weitl.
We ordered the motion submitted with the appeals.
Although, as pointed out, appellant Conner was a member of the county board of education at the time the appeal to the district court was initiated by appellees, he was not a member at the time the decision was rendered by the district court. The majority of the county board as constituted on the date of the decision voted not to appeal to this court.
In support of their motion appellees assert: (1) appeals by individual members of a county board of education, as opposed to an appeal by the formal board, are subject to dismissal and (2) an appeal by an intervenor, without appeal by the party to which allied, is subject to dismissal.
Appellees assert in both divisions of their motion neither Weitl, Conner, Campbell nor Johnson are 'aggrieved parties' under Code sections 275.34 and 275.8 who could initiate the appeal or appeals to a court of record as provided for in chapter 275 since they do not constitute the board of directors of a school district or a county board of education. They argue if the individual members of the school board are not proper parties to appeal to the district court they cannot be proper parties to appeal the decision of that court to the supreme court.
Section 275.34 provides:
In section 275.8 an aggrieved party is defined '* * * as the board of directors of a school district whose directors are elected at large, or, if said board is elected from director districts, then that membership of the board of directors whose districts are included in the proposed reorganized area, or a county board of education.'
Appellants on the other hand maintain the appeals to which the cited Code sections refer are those to the district court from a decision of the state board of public instruction and have no reference to appeals to this court from a decision of the district court on an appeal to it from action of the county board under section 275.1 approved by the state board. The individual board members as appellants further contend they did not initiate the appeal to the district court but were brought into the case in that court by plaintiffs there, appellees here, hence the statutory definition of 'aggrieved party' has no application here.
In another attack against appellees' contention the appeal should be dismissed since appellants were not 'aggrieved parties' within the limited definition of section 275.8 appellants maintain this section applies where there is a controversy over the planning of joint districts and the matter is submitted to the state department. Thus, since there is no joint district involved in the present controversy the statutory definition does not apply.
Before continuing to recount contentions of the parties we shall deal with the point appellants make why the definition of an 'aggrieved party' contained in 275.8 does not apply to the present controversy. Section 275.34 incorporates by reference only the provision of 275.8 defining an 'aggrieved party'. Nothing further may logically be claimed for the reference to 275.8 in 275.34. The definition in 275.34 is not limited to joint districts.
II. Both sides assert other contentions particularly in support of their respective positions with regard to appellees' motion to dismiss Weitl's appeal to this court.
Appellees allege in division II of their motion since...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Peters v. Peters, 55911
...appeal is denied one who is not prejudiced or aggrieved by the decision from which appeal is taken. Eden Township Sch. Dist. v. Carroll County Bd. of Ed., 181 N.W.2d 158, 163 (Iowa 1970). Whether Bill was prejudiced or aggrieved by the decision depends upon interpretation of trial court's r......
-
Crowell v. State Pub. Defender, 12–2226.
...the action of the inferior tribunal and either sustain or annul it. No other relief may be granted. Eden Twp. Sch. Dist. v. Carroll Cnty. Bd. of Educ., 181 N.W.2d 158, 165–66 (Iowa 1970). We have long endorsed the general rule that only a party to the action below may seek a writ of certior......
-
Crowell v. State Pub. Defender
...the action of the inferior tribunal and either sustain or annul it. No other relief may be granted. Eden Twp. Sch. Dist. v. Carroll Cnty. Bd. of Educ., 181 N.W.2d 158, 165-66 (Iowa 1970). We have long endorsed the general rule that only a party to the action below may seek a writ of certior......
-
State v. District Court in and for Polk County, 2--57627
...it selected, we elect to consider the issues as posed in certiorari. Pertinent is our rationale in Eden Township Sch. Dist. v. Carroll County Bd. of Ed., 181 N.W.2d 158, 166 (Iowa 1970): '(T)his proceeding does not arise from litigation where no appeal is permitted. * * * Since plaintiffs e......