Hotchkiss v. Plunkett

• Decision Date: 20 March 1891
• Citation: 60 Conn. 230,22 A. 535
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: HOTCHKISS v. PLUNKETT et al.

22 A. 535

60 Conn. 230

HOTCHKISS

v. PLUNKETT et al.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

March 20, 1891.

Appeal from superior court, New Haven county; Fenn, Judge.

Suit by George Hotchkiss against Joseph D. Plunkett and others, to enjoin the payment of money by the board of education for certain purposes. Judgment for defendants. Plaintiff appeals. Reversed.

W. H. Ely, for appellant.

J. W. Ailing and S. C. Morehouse, for appellees.

ANDREWS, C. J. This is a complaint brought by a tax-payer of a school-district of the city of New Haven, claiming an injunction to restrain the members and officers of the board of education of that school-district from paying out the money of the district for an alleged unlawful purpose. The defendants made an answer to the complaint, to which answer the plaintiff demurred. The court overruled the demurrer, found the answer sufficient, and rendered judgment for the defendants to recover their costs. The plaintiff filed exceptions, and brings the case to this court by appeal. The sole Question upon the record is as to the sufficiency of the answer. The answer to this question involves the discussion of a more general one which lies back of it. On the 19th day of September, 1890, the board of education voted to employ counsel and to defend at the expense of the school-district a certain action brought by William J. Atwater and Edward I. Atwater against William H. Carmalt, Thomas O'Brien, Max Adler, and George T. Hewlett, returnable to and then pending in the superior court for New Haven county. Pursuant to the vote the board employed counsel, who had appeared in court and were defending the suit. In the year 1889 the said Carmalt, O'Brien, and Adler were members, and the said Hewlett was clerk, of the board of education of the school-district. At the time the vote was taken Carmalt had ceased to be a member. The general question, then, is whether or not the board of education can lawfully use the money of the district to defray the expenses of the defense they have undertaken. It is not denied by the plaintiff that a municipal corporation may expend money to indemnify its officers for a loss incurred in the performance of their duties in a proper case. But he says this is not a proper case; that the action brought by the Atwaters against Carmalt. O'Brien, Adler, and Hewlett was brought against the in personally, and for a cause such that it is their duty to pay all damages that may be recovered therein, as well as the expenses of defending the same. And it is not denied by the defendants that an injunction ought to issue at the complaint of a tax-payer to restrain any illegal expenditure of the money of the school-district; but they say it is not illegal to pay the expenses of defending the suit. In order to justify the expenditure of money by a municipal corporation in the indemnity of one or any of its officers for a loss incurred in the discharge of their official duty, three things must appear: First, the officer must have been acting in a matter in which the corporation had an interest; second, he must have been acting in discharge of a duty imposed or authorized by law; and, third, he must have acted in good faith. Gregory v. City of Bridgeport, 41 Conn. 76; Merrill v. Plain field, 45 N. H. 126; Vincent v. Inhabitants of Nantucket, 12 Cush. 103; Dill. Mun. Corp. (4th Ed.) § 219. If the cause of action set forth in the complaint of the Atwaters against Carmalt, O'Brien, Adler, and Hewlett comes within these conditions, then it would be lawful for the school-district to assume the defense. School-districts are quasi corporations of a public nature, with limited powers, strictly defined by statute, and they have no right to raise money by assessment and appropriate the same to purposes not within the scope t)f those powers, even though a majority of their inhabitants expressly vote so to raise and appropriate it. Berlin v. New Britain, 9 Conn. 180; School-District v. Merrills, 12 Conn. 438; Bartlett v. Kinsley, 15 Conn. 327, 334. The powers of school-districts are enumerated in section 2155 of the General Statutes, which provides that "every school-district shall be a body corporate, and have power to sue and be sued, to purchase, receive, hold, and convey real and personal property for school purposes; to build, purchase, hire, and repair school-houses, and supply them with fuel, furniture, and other appendages and accommodations; to establish schools of different grades; to purchase globes, maps, black-boards, and other school apparatus; to establish and maintain a school library; to employ teachers, except for such time as the town may direct the school visitors to employ the teachers, and pay the wages of such teachers as are employed by the district committee in conformity to law; to lay taxes and borrow money for all the foregoing purposes; and to make all lawful agreements and regulations for establishing and conducting schools, not inconsistent with the regulations of the towns having jurisdiction of the schools in such district." There is no authority conferred on a school-district to raise money, other than such as is conferred by this statute. The grant of power to raise money for the specified purposes is doubtless a prohibition of the raising of money for any other purpose.

The entire complaint in the action brought by the Atwaters against Carmalt, O'Brien, Adler, and Hewlett appears in the statement, as well as the whole of the answer made by the present defendants. The gravamen of that complaint is that Carmalt, O'Brien, Adler, and Hewlett had conspired and agreed together to injure the business reputation and standing of the Atwaters, and to hinder and obstruct them in the prosecution of their business, and to prevent them from dealing with the school-district; and that, in pursuance of such conspiracy, they seized and secreted a bid which the Atwaters had made to the school-district to furnish stationery for use in its schools; and in further pursuance of the...