Johnson v. Sanders

• Decision Date: 21 January 1909
• Citation: 115 S.W. 772,131 Ky. 537
• Parties: JOHNSON v. SANDERS.
• Court: Kentucky Court of Appeals

115 S.W. 772

131 Ky. 537

JOHNSON v. SANDERS.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

January 21, 1909

Appeal from Circuit Court, Pike County.

"To be officially reported."

Action by Arminta Johnson against Delbert Sanders. From a judgment of dismissal, plaintiff appeals. Reversed and remanded.

L. J Williamson and F. W. Stowers, for appellant.

Roscoe Vanover, for appellee.

SETTLE C.J.

By this action instituted against appellee in the court below appellant sought to retain, as a teacher, possession of the schoolhouse in common school district 113, Pike county, and to teach the common school therein, which she claimed to have been legally employed to do by a written contract made with the trustees of the district before beginning the school. It was alleged in the petition that although appellant had been in possession of the schoolhouse and conducting the school for a month under employment of the trustees, two of whom had signed the contract by which she had secured the right to teach it, the appellee wrongfully and forcibly attempted to obtain possession of the schoolhouse and to oust her therefrom and deprive her of the right to teach the school under a claim of having himself been employed by two of the trustees to teach it. At the time of filing the petition appellant obtained a temporary restraining order to prevent appellee from interfering with her possession of the schoolhouse and depriving her of the school. The appellee's answer contained a traverse of such of the averments of the petition as set forth appellant's employment and right to teach the school and charged him with the use of force in trying to get possession of the schoolhouse, and alleged: That the contract under which she claimed to have been employed to teach the school was void that one of the two alleged trustees of the district whose name appeared to the contract was without authority to enter into the same and was at the time illegally acting as a trustee and disqualified under the law to be or act as such, because he was then and at the time of his appointment as trustee holding the office as postmaster in Pike county by appointment of the Postmaster General of the United States; and that the office of postmaster and that of trustee of the common school district in question are incompatible. It was also averred in the answer that, after the alleged employment of appellant to teach the district common school, M. D. L. Greer resigned as trustee, and his son, L. C. Greer, was appointed trustee in his place, and, further, that appellee had been legally employed by two of the trustees of the district to teach the common school therein, the contract evidencing the same having been reduced to writing and signed by two of the trustees, L. C. Greer and J. M. Sanders, and that by virtue thereof he was entitled to teach the school and to have the possession of the schoolhouse for that purpose. The temporary restraining order was dismissed by the circuit court, and shortly thereafter, the case coming on to be heard on the merits, judgment was rendered by the court declaring appellee entitled to teach the school in question and dismissing appellant's petition. Of that judgment the latter complains. Hence this appeal.

The record contains an agreed statement of the facts out of which the controversy arose, which are few and simple. Appellant was employed by the trustees to teach the school. Two of the then acting trustees of the district, M. D. L. Greer and U M. Johnson, signed the contract, but the third trustee, J. M. Sanders, did not do so. Appellant was put in possession of the schoolhouse and in charge of the school, which she began at the time fixed by her contract with the trustees, and taught for a month, and until interfered with by the appellee. There was no complaint of her manner of conducting the school, and it is conceded that she held such a teacher's certificate as entitled her to conduct it. The agreed facts further show that appellee attempted to get possession of the schoolhouse and claimed the right to deprive appellant of the school and conduct it himself, upon the ground that her employment as teacher was unauthorized and void, because of the ineligibility of M. D. L. Greer, one of the trustees by whom she was employed, to hold the office of trustee, and because he (appellee) had been employed to teach the school by two of the trustees of the district, J. M. Sanders and L. C. Greer; the latter...