Keys v. Carter
| Decision Date | 29 September 1975 |
| Docket Number | No. 48221,48221 |
| Citation | 318 So.2d 862 |
| Parties | Mrs. Dolister KEYS et al. v. Roy CARTER et al. |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
Charles H. Ramberg, Brandon, Barry H. Powell, John L. Maxey, II, Jackson, for appellants.
W. E. McIntyre, Jr., McLaurin & Nicols, George Kelly, Brandon, Chill, Chill & Dove, Jackson, for appellees.
Before GILLESPIE, SMITH and ROBERTSON, JJ.
Appellants, Mrs. Dolister Keys, T. Z. Bragg and Mrs. Roy Carter, as taxpayers of the County Wide School District of Rankin County, were complainants in a suit brought by them in the Chancery Court of that county against Tom Rives, Milton Singletary, Hilton Richardson, Kenneth Bridges, and Ralph Moore, members of the Board of Supervisors of Rankin County, and the sureties on their official bonds, and Roy Carter, to whom the Board had leased 320 acres of sixteenth section school lands for a period of 25 years at an annual rental of $170.
In their bill, complainants invited other taxpayers similarly situated to join and stated that the suit was brought in the interest of 'said taxpayers' and that any money recovered would 'go to the County Wide School District.'
The bill alleged that the rental value of the land was and is $4,000 per year and that its lease to Carter by the board of supervisors for $170 a year amounted to an unconstitutional donation, in violation of Article 4, Section 95 of the Mississippi Constitution of 1890 and thus was an 'appropriation of said leasehold interest' in the land to an 'object not authorized by law.'
Complainants demanded a money judgment against the individual members of the board of supervisors and the sureties on their bonds in the sum of the difference between the rent contracted for at $170 per annum and the $4,000 per annum, alleged by complainants to have been the fair value of the leasehold, extending over the entire 25 year period of the lease. There was no specific prayer that the lease be declared void or cancelled but the bill concluded with a prayer for general relief.
To this bill defendants interposed a general demurrer and this was sustained by the chancellor. Complainants having declined to plead further, the bill was dismissed, and this appeal has ensued.
Since the case went off in the trial court on general demurrer, we have before us no facts except those alleged to be facts by complainants in their bill.
Complainants' right to bring the suit is challenged by appellees and it is argued that their lack of standing to do so is a sufficient basis for upholding the action of the chancellor in sustaining the general demurrer.
Mississippi Code Annotated section 29-3-1 (1972) vests in the board of supervisors 'control and jurisdiction of said lands (sixteenth section school lands) and of all funds arising from any disposition thereof heretofore or hereafter made.'
This Court is committed to the proposition that these lands constitute property held in trust for the public schools and must be dealt with by boards of supervisors as such and thus the rules applicable to trusts and trust property generally are to be applied.
As shown by copies of communications attached as exhibits to the bill, the alleged facts of the case were communicated to the Attorney General, District Attorney and County Attorney by complainants, with a request for action as a condition precedent to the filing of the present suit by them. It is alleged that, notwithstanding this, no action was taken by any of these officials. In the absence of anything to the contrary, (and there is nothing before us at this time save the bill and the demurrer), this must be considered a sufficient compliance with that aspect of the requirements set forth in Mississippi Road Supply v. Hester, 185 Miss. 839, 188 So. 281 (1939).
The facts alleged in the bill, if supported by proof accepted by the chancellor as the trier of...
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