Gale v. School Distrcit No. 4, 1939

• Decision Date: 18 February 1936
• Docket Number: 1939
• Parties: GALE ET AL. v. SCHOOL DISTRCIT NO. 4 ET AL
• Court: Wyoming Supreme Court

54 P.2d 811

49 Wyo. 384

GALE ET AL. v. SCHOOL DISTRCIT NO. 4 ET AL

No. 1939

Supreme Court of Wyoming

February 18, 1936

APPEAL FROM the District Court, Laramie County; V. J. TIDBALL Judge.

Action by Rudolph Gale and others against School District No. 4 and others. From the judgment, defendants appeal.

Affirmed.

For the defendants and appellants the cause was submitted on the brief of J. A. Greenwood of Cheyenne.

The action was for a money judgment and an injunction preventing future expenditures in excess of $ 10.00 per month per pupil to provide transportation or maintenance of school children transported to schools within the defendant district or in adjoining districts. Chapter 136, Laws 1933 governs. The court erred in excluding appellants offers of proof, relating to conditions in school district No. 4 and in overruling their motion for judgment of dismissal and demurrer. The trial court also erred in holding that Chapter 136, Laws 1933 repealed all other school laws relating to the subject of school district expenditures. In construing said Chapter 136 the intent of the Legislature is to be determined from the language of the act itself. 25 R. C. L. 917; Burton v. U. P. Coal Company, 18 Wyo. 362; International Harvester Company v. Lumber Company, 25 Wyo. 367; Houghton Bros. v. Yocum, 40 Wyo. 57; Griggs v. Thulemeyer, 41 Wyo. 36; Vincent v. Reeves, 31 P.2d 680. There is no presumption in favor of repeal by implication of other statutes relating to schools, by the adoption of Chapter 136, Laws 1933. Snyder v. McCracken, 34 Wyo. 349; Cattle Company v. Baird, 8 Wyo. 144; Tucker v. State, 35 Wyo. 430. Statutes relating to the power of school district officers are to be construed so as not to interfere with the exercise of sound discretion on the part of the district officers. 24 R. C. L. 575; School District No. 3 v. Western Tube Company, 5 Wyo. 185; Merryman v. School Dist., 43 Wyo. 376; State v. School District, 45 Wyo. 365; School Dist. No. 3 v. The Western Tube Company, 13 Wyo. 304; Const. Art. VII, Section 1; Sec. 99-334, R. S. The statutes pertaining to the payment of tuition, transportation or maintenance should be construed together. They are pari materia and should be so construed as one law. In re Cadwell's Eestate, 26 Wyo. 412.

There was no appearance for plaintiffs and respondents.

RINER, Justice. KIBALL, CH. J., and BLUME, J., concur.

OPINION

RINER, Justice.

In this case the plaintiffs as residents and taxpayers in School District No. 4 in Laramie County, Wyoming, brought suit in the district court of said county against the defendants, the School District above named and three individuals, who are described in the plaintiff's amended petition as respectively the Chairman, Clerk and Treasurer of that corporate body. Dissatisfied with a part of the judgment rendered below, the defendants have brought the record here for review by direct appeal. The plaintiffs, although they filed a notice of appeal with reference to that portion of the judgment adverse to them, have done nothing further, are not represented by counsel and have filed no brief in this Court.

The action was brought to recover from them, and each of them, certain sums of money alleged to have been expended unlawfully by the defendants during the school years 1933-1934 and 1934-1935, through asserted overpayments made for the transportation of school pupils in said District; also to recover a stated amount for pupil transportation expense claimed to be due the plaintiff Conrad during the school year 1933-1934; and further for an injunction restraining said defendants "from the commission or continuation" of the acts alleged in plaintiffs' amended petition to be unlawful, these being, to state them shortly, the expenditure and threatened expenditure by the defendants of amounts in excess of $ 10.00 per month per pupil for transportation and maintenance within the said District or adjoining Districts in lieu of establishing or maintaining schools therein. An answer, consisting chiefly of sundry admissions and denials, by the defendants, and a reply by the plaintiffs, in form a general denial of any new matter set out in said answer, were filed.

The case was tried to the court without a jury and the judgment in question entered, wherein a recovery of any amount whatsoever from the defendants, or any of them, was denied plaintiffs, but it was also "ordered, adjudged and decreed that the defendants be and they are hereby permanently enjoined and restrained from spending of the funds of School District No. 4 in excess of $ 10.00 per month per pupil to pay for the transportation of elementary or high school pupils of School District No. 4 to other schools within the district or in another school district in lieu of establishing or maintaining schools within said district, and for maintenance, including board and room, of said pupils while attending any other school within the district or in an adjoining district." To this part of the judgment defendants were given an exception and from it they have appealed.

It is established by the record in the case that at the time the trial was had and the judgment was entered, the defendants had taken all necessary steps to provide transportation or maintenance exceeding $ 10.00 per month per pupil for certain elementary or high school pupils within that district or adjoining districts in lieu of establishing or maintaining schools within said School District No. 4. These pupils are referred to generally as "isolated" pupils, although not always, that term being explained by the Treasurer of the District in his testimony as follows:

"Q. What do you mean by an isolated pupil, Mr. Willadsen?

A. That is one that lives off the roads part of the way, or where there is only one pupil to maintain a school for. That would be an isolated pupil.

* * * *

Q. Is the term 'isolated' applied to those who are at some distance from a school or that are more expensive to handle--which is it?

A. It might apply both ways."

For the purpose of the subsequent discussion, the situation as above stated will constitute an all sufficient recital of the facts in the case needful to be kept in mind. As counsel for the defendants stated to the trial court, there is really but one question to be decided, and that is the construction which should be placed upon the amendment of Section 99-317 W. R. S., 1931, contained in Chapter 136, Section 1, of the Laws of Wyoming, 1933. (Legislative Session convening January 10, 1933.) The Section of the Revised Statutes cited enumerates the powers of qualified electors of School Districts when in meeting assembled, and the sub-division thereof numbered "3" in that compilation originally read:

"To determine the number of schools which shall be established in the district, and the length of time each shall be taught."

Chapter 136, aforesaid, which was enacted to take effect "from and after its passage," was approved by the Governor February 27, 1933, and added to the language of the third sub-division quoted above, the following:

"and whenever it shall be more economical, to provide transportation or maintenance not to exceed ten dollars per month per pupil for elementary or high school pupils within the district or in adjoining districts, in lieu of establishing or maintaining schools within said district; provided, provision for such transportation or maintenance shall be by adoption of a resolution reciting the total amount provided for and the amount of expenses which will be saved and which would otherwise be necessary in the establishment or maintenance of designated schools within the district;"

Appellants in their brief have directed our attention to that part of Article VII, Section 1 of the Constitution of Wyoming, which reads:

"The legislature shall provide for the establishment and maintenance of a complete and uniform system of public instruction, embracing free elementary schools of every needed kind and grade, * * *."

Certain statutes also are cited as having some bearing upon the question to be considered, viz.: the first sentence of Section 99-334 W. R. S., 1931, whose language is: "The public schools of each school district of the state shall at all times be equally free and accessible to all children resident therein over six and under the age of twenty-one years, subject to such regulations as the district board in each district may prescribe;" Section 99-820 W. R. S., 1931, as amended by Chapter 63 of the Laws of Wyoming, 1933, supra, relating to the compensation of drivers on transportation routes established by school districts for their pupils and enabling such districts to participate in the county school tax and county school fund, as well as in the government royalty fund, upon certain bases therein set forth; that portion of Section 99-325 W. R. S. 1931, which provides, "and when it appears to the satisfaction of the district board of any district that elementary school pupils can be better provided for in other districts, or in other schools in the same district, the district boards of the districts in which the pupils reside shall pay, from the funds of the district, tuition and shall have power to pay all or part of the board and room;" and the language of Section 99-822 W. R. S. 1931, to the following effect: "All transportation routes established under the provisions of §§ 99-820 to 99-824 shall be bona fide routes, and their course shall be such as to provide for the transportation of the largest number of children compatible...