Graves v. Jasper School Tp. of Hanson County

• Decision Date: 15 January 1892
• Parties: Graves v. Jasper School Tp. of Hanson County.
• Court: South Dakota Supreme Court

50 N.W. 904

2 S.D. 414

Graves v. Jasper School Tp. of Hanson County.

Supreme Court of South Dakota

January 15, 1892

Syllabus by the Court.

1. A resident and tax-payer of a school subdistrict, who lives only one half mile from a legally located school-house in said subdistrict, and who has children of school age to send to school, and whose taxes will be materially increased by a removal of the school-house two and one-half miles further from his residence, has such an individual interest in the subject-matter, not common with all other residents and tax-payers of such subdistrict, as gives him the right to invoke a court of equity to restrain the illegal acts of residents or of the township school board in such proposed removal.

2. A school-house, having been located and built in accordance with law, can only be removed from that locality upon a vote of a majority of the electors of the subdistrict in which it is situated. To make such a removal, or attempt to make it without that vote being taken and so declared, is without the solemn sanction of the electors, and is illegal and unlawful.

Appeal from circuit court, Hanson county; D. HANEY, Judge.

Action by Charles R. Graves against Jasper School Township of Hanson County (a corporation) to enjoin it from moving a certain school-house. Judgment for plaintiff. Defendant appeals. Affirmed.

F. B Smith, for appellant. R. M. Dott, for respondent.

BENNETT J.

This is an action by injunction for the purpose of enjoining and restraining the defendant from moving a certain frame school-house. Upon the hearing, the court found certain findings of fact and conclusions of law, and granted the injunction as prayed for. To the granting of this injunction the appeal is taken. The facts as found by the court below are admitted to be true. Exceptions were taken to all the conclusions of law. Numerous assignments of error are presented for our consideration. The conclusions of law as found by the court, and the assignments of error by the appellant, raise but two questions for determination: (1) Has the plaintiff such an interest in the subject-matter of the suit as enables him to maintain this action? (2) Do the facts alleged in the complaint, admitted in the answer and found by the court, entitle him to the relief demanded?

As to the first question, the appellant insists that the plaintiff cannot maintain the action, for the facts show that he has no interest in it which is not common with all resident freeholders, tax-payers, and patrons of subdivision No. 2 even if subdistrict No. 5 exists. His injury, if any, is no different from that of all others of that subdistrict. The facts upon which plaintiff bases his right to maintain the action are that he has resided on section 8, in subdistrict 2, continuously since 1880; that he owns and pays taxes on 400 acres of land in that district; that he lives one-half mile from the school-house; that he has five children of school age; that a tax of two and one-half mills on the dollar was levied on his property to defray the expenses of moving the school-house to its proposed site; that, should it be moved, his dwelling would be two and three-fourths miles from said school-house. Are these facts sufficient for a resident and tax-payer to invoke the powers of a court of equity to restrain the alleged proposed action of the school board of directors? Ordinarily, if officers of a public corporation are acting ultra vires or fraudulently, the corporation itself is the proper party to bring the suit, by appropriate action, to prevent the wrong; but if the corporation will not, or does not, bring such action, can it be said that our jurisprudence is so defective as to leave an injured person remediless, and require him to sustain a loss without effectual remedy? We think not. "In this country," says Judge Dillon in his work on Municipal Corporations, (section 94,) "the right of property holders or taxable inhabitants to resort to equity to restrain municipal corporations or their officers from transcending their lawful powers, or violating their legal duties, in any mode which will injuriously affect the tax-payer, such as making an unauthorized appropriation of the corporate funds. or an illegal or wrongful disposition of the corporate property, *** has without the aid of statute provisions to that effect been affirmed or recognized in numerous cases in many of the states. It is the prevailing we may now add almost universal, doctrine on the subject. It can, we think, be vindicated upon principle, in view of the nature of the powers exercised by municipal corporations, and the necessity of affording easy, direct, and adequate preventive relief against their misuse. It is better that those immediately affected by corporate abuse should be armed with the power to interfere directly in their own names than to compel them to reply upon the action of a district state officer." Mr Justice FIELD, of the supreme court of the United States, in delivering the opinion of the court in the case of Crampton v. Zabriskie, 101 U.S. 601, says "Of the right of resident tax-payers to invoke the interposition of a court of equity to prevent an illegal disposition of the moneys of the county, or the illegal creation of a debt which they, in common with other property holders of the county, may otherwise be compelled to pay, there is at this day no serious question. The right has been recognized by the state courts in numerous cases; and, from the nature of the powers exercised by municipal corporations, the great danger of their abuse, and the necessity of prompt action to prevent irremediable injuries, it would seem eminently proper for courts of equity to interfere, upon the application of the tax-payers of a county, to prevent the consummation of a wrong, when the officers of these corporations assume, in excess of their powers, to create burdens upon property holders. Certainly, in the absence of legislation restricting this right to interfere in such cases to public officers of the state or county, there would seem to be no substantial reason why a bill by or on behalf of individual tax-payers should not be entertained...