Kelley v. Brunswick Sch. Dist.

• Decision Date: 28 September 1936
• Parties: KELLEY et al. v. BRUNSWICK SCHOOL DIST. et al.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

187 A. 703

KELLEY et al.

v. BRUNSWICK SCHOOL DIST. et al.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Sept. 28, 1936.

Report from Supreme Judicial Court, Cumberland County, in Equity.

Suit by Leon H. Kelley and others against Brunswick School District and others. On report.

Bill dismissed.

Argued before DUNN, C. J., and STURGIS, BARNES, THAXTER, HUDSON, and MANSER, JJ.

Spinney & Spinney, of North Berwick, for plaintiffs.

Verrill, Hale, Booth & Ives, of Portland, for defendants.

DUNN, Chief Justice.

In 1935 the Legislature, by special act (Priv. & Sp.Laws, c. 70)—the law became effective July 6—created the Brunswick School District, which, for brevity, will be spoken of as district. The first section of the act, so far as recital is essential, reads as follows: "The inhabitants and territory within the town of Brunswick are hereby created a body politic and corporate under the name of Brunswick School District for the purpose of acquiring property within the said town for school purposes; erecting, enlarging, repairing, equipping and maintaining on said property a school building; and for the purpose of maintaining a secondary school, with the right to lease or let said property to said town; all for the benefit of the inhabitants of said town."

Legislative action was made to depend upon the wishes of the listed vote'rs in the proposed district. The vote of a majority of the electors, in case of an election for the expression of their choice, and an annual meeting of the inhabitants of the town of Brunswick, hereinafter generally called town, being held on the same day, was defined as necessary to decision; whereas if the election was on any day before that of the next town meeting (such meetings are by statute, R.S., c. 5, § 12, in March), vote of one-third of all the voters in the territorial division would suffice. The latter method was followed October 14, 1935.

At the same election, five trustees were chosen by plurality vote.

The legislation empowers borrowing on the faith and credit of the district a sum not in excess of $250,000, to be met, together with interest, from the levying, annually, over a period of years, of taxes upon its polls and estates.

The borrowed money must be expended for the erection and equipment of a building in the district for a secondary school.

When the money shall have been repaid, and every indebtedness of the district discharged, the property whatsoever which it may at that time hold, is, under the terms of the act, to be transferred to the town. The trustees shall then cease to function, the district itself become legally defunct, and "all of the duties, management, care and maintenance shall revert to the school board of the town of Brunswick." Section 7, 1935 Laws, supra.

The trustees have made part payment of the purchase price of a building site; they purpose to complete that transaction, and, on making loans in supplement to an expected grant from the Federal Public Works Administration, to contract for a high school, the total expense, inclusive of any grant, to be within the sanction of the act.

Ten individual taxpayers, alleging themselves inhabitants of the town, and of the district superimposed upon it, the area of the two being identical, instituted this suit against the district, and, by designation, its trustees, to test the validity of the statute; and for relief by injunction.

Jurisdictional allegations are sufficient. R.S., c. 91, § 36, cl. 13; Crabtree v. Ayer, 122 Me. 18, 118 A. 790; Hamilton v. Portland Pier Site District, 120 Me. 15, 112 A. 836.

The cause was heard on the bill, answers, replication, and facts agreed on, and reported to the full court.

It is too clear to require argument that, consistent with the threefold division of governmental power, political divisions, other than cities and towns, may be erected for public purposes. There is no dispute in the briefs that the body whose business with regard to such policy it is in the first place, is the Legislature.

The present case is insisted governed by no decision of the court of last resort. Counsel for the complainants say that our cases deal chiefly with incorporations partaking in their incidents the nature of municipalities, whose continuing and definite activities are distinct from those which a single city or town, of like space, is at the same time performing.

Hamilton v. Portland Pier Site District, cited before, sustained this situation: Corporate existence of a district comprising the territory and population within two cities, was to continue until the acquirement by that district, not for itself but for another, by issuing and selling bonds, repayable in money to come from taxes, of a location for a public pier.

The case is not authority to support fully the legislation now under consideration. The point on which the decision there depended was that of laying taxes for a purpose not ordinarily municipal, on the theory that, from state-wide use of the pier, special benefit, not disproportionate to burden, would result to the tax district.

For the support and maintenance of schools, school districts embracing fractions of towns were early set up in Massachusetts. Inhabitants of Fourth School District in Rumford v. Wood, 13 Mass. 193. Such districts were continued in Maine. The Act of 1821, c. 117, to provide for the education of youth, made each school district a "body corporate." Whitmore v. Hogan, 22 Me. 564.

School districts were, for certain purposes, considered a form of municipal corporation, within the meaning of that generic term. Inhabitants of Fourth School District in Rumford v. Wood, supra; Andrews v. Estes, 11 Me. 267, 26 Am.Dec. 521. They were abolished in 1893. School District No. 1 v. Deering, 91 Me. 516, 40 A. 541.

The districts were auxiliary to towns in effecting an intense belief on the part of the public in the virtue of popular education. The powers of those districts were commensurate with their duties as part of such a system. They might, among other limited and specific things, hire money on the tax liability of their polls and estates, to build schoolhouses. P.L., 1846, chap. 208. District debts were not debts of the town. Gaskill v. Dudley, 6 Mete. (Mass.) 546, 552, 39 Am.Dec. 750.

The whole territory of the town, whether divided by the Legislature, as it pleased (Parker v. Titcomb, 82 Me. 180, 19 A. 162), or by the town itself, optionally, under legislative warrant (Gaskill v. Dudley, supra), was embraced within different districts. Fry v. Inhabitants of 1st School District, 4 Cush.(Mass.) 250. So far as districts were corporations—quasi municipal corporations was the usual denomination—they were of the same kind as towns, organized for the same purposes, and charged with duties which would otherwise have devolved upon the town. Gaskill v. Dudley, supra.

It is objected that the act in question does not incorporate a district separate from the town; that the district must depend on the town, not only for pupils, but for teachers. Argument does not do more than suggest that if the question had been debatable, the Legislature, by passing the act, decided the issue. This action is not reviewable in the courts.

Nothing in the act attempts to dissolve the town; to divide it; or to repeal, curtail, or regulate any duty or responsibility resting on it. On the contrary, to do more for the cause of education than the town, in measuring to requirement, is already doing, might be said to be the main purpose of the act. Cushing v. Newburyport, 10 Mete.(Mass.) 508.

Towns must provide funds for the support of public schools within their limits, but it does not follow that the Legislature can do no more for the same general purpose. Call v. Chadbourne, 46 Me. 206, 222.

Municipal corporations organized for different purposes may include the same territory, as a city and a county, or a school district. McQuillin, Mun.Corp.(2d Ed.) Vol. 1, § 283. Two authorities cannot exercise power in the same area, over the same subject, at the same time. Dillon, Mun.Corp.(4th Ed.) vol. 1, § 184; Rex v. Passmore, 3 T.R. 199; Paterson v. Society, 24 N.J.Law, 385. But identity of territory, putting one municipal corporation, full or quasi, where another is, is immaterial, if the units are for distinct and different purposes. South Park Com'rs v. Chicago, etc., R. Co., 286 Ill. 504, 122 N.E. 89.

A purpose of the act incorporating the Brunswick district is that of maintaining a secondary school. Territory of district and town being alike, the maintenance in the district of such school will necessarily be "for the benefit of the inhabitants of said town." The case is not presented in the phase of leasing the schoolhouse to the town; nor does it involve how money may be had for paying teachers, the act being silent on the topic. Teachers might be paid otherwise than by taxes.

The act provides that title to all the property which the district may eventually have shall vest in the town.

A school district is a public agency or trustee established to carry out the policy of the state to educate its youth. The Legislature may change such agencies, and control and direct what shall be done with school property. The length of time this district may exist, is, because capable of being made certain, definite from the beginning. A municipal corporation owes its existence to the legislative will. Bank of Rome v. Rome, 18 N.Y. 38, 43. The Legislature may, in its discretion, abolish or dissolve such a corporation at any time. 43 C.J. p. 171. When the district is at an end, the town shall, in succession, take the property, impressed with the duty of carrying on the trust. Town of Barre v. School District, 67 Vt. 108, 30 A. 807; School-District No. 16 v. Concord, 64 N.H. 235, 9 A. 630; In re School Committee, 26 R.I. 164, 58 A. 628.

The property held by school districts for public use is subject to such disposition in the promotion of the objects for which it is held, as the...