Hawkins v. Carroll
| Decision Date | 24 March 1939 |
| Docket Number | 14847. |
| Citation | 1 S.E.2d 898,190 S.C. 11 |
| Parties | HAWKINS et al. v. CARROLL et al. |
| Court | South Carolina Supreme Court |
J Davis Kerr, Jr., and Osborne, Butler & Moore, all of Spartanburg, for petitioners.
R B. Pasley and Rufus M. Ward, and Donald Russell, all of Spartanburg, for respondents.
At its 1938 session, the General Assembly passed an act, 40 Stat. at Large, p. 1775, section 1 of an act of 1934, 38 Stat. at Large, p. 1338, relating to the election and term of office of school trustees in Spartanburg County, the part of such amendatory act here pertinent being as follows "Upon a written petition signed by at least one-third of the qualified electors and one-third of the resident freeholders of any school district being filed with the Chairman of the Board of Registration on or before February 25th of any year, including 1939, the Board shall determine on or before March 5th whether or not said petition meets the requirements set out above, and shall within three days thereafter notify the board of trustees of the respective school districts meeting the requirements to call an election to be held on or before March 28th of that year."
Pursuant to the provisions of this statute, a petition was circulated in Saxon district No. 70 of Spartanburg County asking that an election be had for school trustees of that district. The petition contained forty-five signatures of alleged resident freeholders of the district, and was filed with the board of registration on February 24, 1939. On February 25th another petition was filed with the chairman of the board. This contained the signatures of seventeen persons who claimed that they, as resident freeholders of the district, had signed the original petition through inadvertence and asked that their names be stricken therefrom.
The board met on March 4, 1939, to determine if the petition asking for the election complied with all the requirements of the act. At this hearing testimony was taken and affidavits of nine persons who had previously signed both petitions were offered in evidence; these affidavits were to the effect that the makers thereof did not want, as they favored the election, their names stricken from the original petition.
As a result of the hearing, the board found as a fact, which is not disputed, that there were seventy-three resident freeholders in Saxon School District 70, and that thirty-six of these were signers of the original petition. By its action, the board held that the signers of the second petition, seventeen in number, could not, under the law and facts, withdraw their respective names from the original petition asking for the election, but included these names in the count of thirty-six of such signers. As this count of thirty-six resident freeholders of the district was more than the one-third required by law, and as no question was made as to the qualified electors thereof, the board held that the original petition met all legal requirements, and the trustees were notified to call an election as provided by the statute.
By permission, this proceeding was then instituted in the original jurisdiction of the Court. The petitioners alleged among other things, that the board of registration committed error of law in holding that the seventeen signers of the second petition could not withdraw their names from the petition asking for an election, in admitting in evidence and considering, if it did, the nine affidavits referred to, and in holding that the original petition met all the requirements of the act. They asked that a writ of certiorari issue commanding the board to certify to this Court all original records and papers in the matter, and to make return to the writ as the Court might order; and that the trustees of the school district also be directed to plead thereto. The writ was issued as prayed for, and in due time all acts required to be done under its terms were performed by the respondents or the impossibility of performance explained.
While two questions are stated and argued by counsel, under our view of the case, it will be necessary to consider only one of these, which may be thus stated: Did the board of registration, under the admitted facts, commit error of law in holding that the seventeen resident freeholders of the district...
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Easler v. Blackwell
... ... at ... Large, 1775), has produced litigation of such a nature as to ... render necessary four appeals to this Court--see Hawkins ... [195 S.C. 18] v. Carroll et al., 190 S.C. 11, 1 S.E.2d ... 898, 126 A.L.R. 1028; Corn v. Blackwell et al., 191 ... S.C. 183, 4 S.E.2d 254, and ... ...
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