Fisher v. Fay
| Decision Date | 15 April 1919 |
| Docket Number | No. 12424.,12424. |
| Citation | 288 Ill. 11,122 N.E. 811 |
| Parties | FISHER et al. v. FAY, County Clerk, et al. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from Circuit Court, Piatt County; George A. Sentel, Judge.
Suit by James Fisher and others against Harvey Fay, County Clerk, and others. Judgment for defendants, and plaintiffs appeal. Affirmed.
Herrick & Herrick, of Farmer City, for appellants.
George M. Thompson, of Bement, and Charles C. Le Forgee, George W. Black, and Thomas W. Samuels, all of Decatur, for appellees.
Appellants, as landowners and taxpayers of Bement township hign school district No. 108, filed a bill in the circuit court of Piatt county March 6, 1917, to enjoin a tax of $10,000 levied by the president and board of education of said district July 22, 1916, for educational and building purposes. The county clerk of said county, the tax collectors of the several towns of said school district, and the board of education thereof were made parties defendant, and a preliminary injunction was issued. Defendants answered the bill and moved to dissolve the injunction, supported by affidavits. Appellants also filed affidavits and introduced evidence in support of their bill. On final hearing, June 10, 1918, the court dissolved the injunction, dismissed the bill for want of equity at appellants' costs, and they prayed and have perfected this appeal.
The evidence discloses that on September 18, 1915, a petition was filed with the county superintendent of schools of said county in the usual form and signed by more than 50 of the legal voters of said territory, praying that he submit, at an election to be held for that purpose, the proposition to organize the territory therein named, containing about 84 sections of contiguous and compace territory in said county, into a high school district. An election was regularly called, advertised, and held October 9, 1915, in said territory, and at the election there were cast 353 votes for the organization of said township high school and 232 against such organization. The vote was declared and published, and the district was duly organized in accordance with the provisions of the High School Act of June 5, 1911 (Laws 1911, p. 505) under the name aforesaid. An election for a board of education, consisting of a president and six members was then duly called, advertised, and held November 6, 1915, under said act, and a president and six members were then duly elected as the board of education for the district. Thereafter, on proper petitions and elections, school district No. 77 in said county, having a territory of two sections, was duly annexed to said high school district, and the county superintendent of schools filed with the county clerk of said county on April 3, 1916, his certificate of annexation, and directed him to add the two sections composing district 77 to high school district No. 108. On June 1, 1916, appellants presented a petition for certiorari to the circuit judge of said county against the county superintendent of schools and the president and members of the board of education of said high school district No. 108, in substance charging that the alleged organization of the said district was void, and the statute of June 5, 1911, under which it was organized, unconstitutional. Leave was granted, and upon the return made and a hearing the circuit court quashed the writ and dismissed the petition. On appeal to this court the judgment of the circuit court was on February 21, 1917, reversed, and the cause remanded. Fisher v. McIntosh, 277 Ill. 432, 115 N. E. 529. It further appears that after the cause was remanded by this court and reinstated in the circuit court, and after the validating act of June 14, 1917, was passed and became a law, the writ of certiorari was again quashed, and the petition dismissed. Teachers were employed, and a high school has been conducted in rented premises in said district No. 108 up to the filing of this bill, since the fall of 1916. The board of education authorized an issue of bonds in the amount of $55,000 for the purpose of constructing a high school building in said district pursuant to a vote of the people, and the bonds were sold prior to the filing of this bill, but were not delivered.About one half of the $10,000 tax levied and sought to be enjoined by this bill has been collected from the taxpayers, but the other half is still unpaid.
The bill set up the foregoing facts and the ultimate facts from which the foregoing conclusions are drawn in detail, and other facts, and is in proper form. It was charged in the bill that the act under which said district was sought to be organized is unconstitutional and void. This court has so held in People v. Weis, 275 Ill. 581, 114 N. E. 331. The bill further charged that the validating act of June 14, 1917 (Laws 1917, p. 744), is unconstitutional and void, as contravening section 2 of article 2 and sections 9 and 10 of article 9 of the Constitution of Illinois and the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, and that for those reasons said act had no legal effect to validate said district or the election of the board of education or any of the official acts or such board.
The validating act approved June 14, 1917,...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
People ex rel. Morris v. Opie
...has been chosen, the territory constitutes a valid high school district. People v. Madison, 280 Ill. 96, 117 N. E. 493.Fisher v. Fay, 288 Ill. 11, 122 N. E. 811. We have held that, where the law under which the attempted organization of school districts was effected is unconstitutional, the......
-
People ex rel. Russell v. Graham
...272 Ill. 387, 112 N. E. 57;People v. Peltier, 275 Ill. 217, 113 N. E. 856;People v. Craft, 282 Ill. 483, 118 N. E. 777;Fisher v. Fay, 288 Ill. 11, 122 N. E. 811.Worley v. Idleman, 285 Ill. 214, 120 N. E. 472, is a case involving the constitutionality of an act validating hard road bonds, bu......
-
Lindheimer v. Gaylord Bldg. Corp.
...sale of the property. See also People v. Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad Co., 284 Ill. 87, 119 N.E. 914;Fisher v. Fay, 288 Ill. 11, 122 N.E. 811. In a long line of subsequent decisions, however, we have held that a statute which purports to validate a levy originally ma......
-
People ex rel. Hanks v. Benton
...act of 1921 hereinbeforequoted, the Legislature has the power to validate the district theretofore irregularly organized. Fisher v. Fay, 288 Ill. 11, 122 N. E. 811;People v. Militzer, 272 Ill. 387, 112 N. E. 57;People v. Opie (No. 14166) 133 N. E. 689. Since the passage of the act of May 4 ......