Lewis Consol. School Dist. of Cass County v. Johnston

• Decision Date: 10 March 1964
• Docket Number: No. 51226,51226
• Citation: 127 N.W.2d 118,256 Iowa 236
• Parties: LEWIS CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL DISTRICT OF CASS COUNTY, Iowa and Board of Directors of Lewis Consolidated School District, Plaintiffs, v. Paul F. JOHNSTON, State Superintendent of Public Instruction and State Board of Public Instruction, Defendants, Riley Clark, Intervenor.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

Page 118

127 N.W.2d 118

256 Iowa 236

LEWIS CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL DISTRICT OF CASS COUNTY, Iowa and Board of Directors of Lewis Consolidated School District, Plaintiffs, v. Paul F. JOHNSTON, State Superintendent of Public Instruction and State Board of Public Instruction, Defendants Riley Clark, Intervenor.

No. 51226.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

March 10, 1964.

Richard C. Turner, Council Bluffs, for appellant.

Evan L. Hultman, Atty. Gen., J. Robert Hard, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Bruce M. Snell, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Des Moines, for appellees.

THOMPSON, Justice.

The defendants are the only factor constant throughout the proceedings before us in the present appeal. The plaintiffs are much diminished in number since the original action was commenced; the intervenor now appears as a plaintiff; and the issues and relief asked are greatly altered. In addition, one of the plaintiffs who prosecuted the final action in the trial court has declined to join in the appeal.

The suit was brought in the first instance by the Lewis Consolidated School District of Cass County, joined by its board of directors, as plaintiffs; Riley Clark, a resident and taxpayer of the district, intervened, making common cause with the plaintiffs. The petition alleged that the defendants, acting under the purported authority of code section 257.18(13) threatened to and would in fact remove the plaintiff school district from the list of approved schools as of July 1, 1962, and thereby terminate its right to share in the allocation of state funds to school districts; that section 257.18(13) is unconstitutional and the acts of the defendants thereunder were arbitrary and discriminatory and likewise in violation of constitutional provisions. The prayer was that the defendants be enjoined from removing the district from the approved list of schools; and that a writ of mandamus issue commanding the defendants to forthwith do all things necessary to keep the district on the list of approved schools entitled to share in the distribution of state funds. There was also a prayer for general equitable relief.

The case being at issue, trial began in late June of 1962. However, at the commencement of the trial it appeared that the district had by a three to two vote of its directors acquiesced in the demand of the defendants that it abandon its intention to offer instruction in the ninth grade, so that its curriculum would thenceforth include only teaching in the kindergarten through the eighth grade; K through 8, as the schoolmen state it. The defendants then announced, through Paul F. Johnston, superintendent of public instruction, that the district had been placed upon the approved list of schools; and the plaintiff school district directed its counsel to dismiss the action.

Thereupon two of the directors who were plaintiffs, and the intervenor, asked permission to amend the petition to ask for declaratory relief; in effect making the same charges of unconstitutionality of the statute and the acts of the defendants in administering it. This permission was granted by the court, the amendment was filed, with the intervenor appearing therein as a plaintiff together with the two dissatisfied directors; and the case proceeded to further trial at a later date. The trial court upheld the statute and the acts of the defendants, and denied relief to the plaintiffs. Lloyd Weppler, one of the original plaintiffs, and the former intervenor, now plaintiff, Riley Clark, have appealed to this court. They assign three errors: 1, failure of the trial court to hold section 257.18 unconstitutional on the grounds asserted; 2, failure to find discrimination and lack of uniform application in the stands adopted by the defendants; and 3, failure to find discrimination and lack of uniform application in the administration of the standards and of the statute, and failure to find that the state superintendent of the public instruction has used and is using his powers and discretion in an arbitrary and capricious manner.

I. First we are faced with a challenge to the right of the present plaintiffs to prosecute the action for a declaratory judgment. The defendants now assert two related claims: that no declaratory judgment action lies, because there is shown no justiciable controversy; and that the plaintiffs have shown no actual injury to themselves and so have no standing to raise the constitutional questions they have attempted to assert. They say that for these reasons there is no jurisdiction in the courts to determine the questions involved. It is doubtful if these questions were presented to the trial court; at least its findings of fact and conclusions of law are devoted solely to the merits of the constitutional issues raised.

In any event, we think the defendants' position unsound. It should be observed that the then counsel for the defendants apparently acquiesced in the amendment which changed the nature of the action to one for a declaratory judgment. After the request to permit amendment had been made by the remaining plaintiffs, the trial court indicated it was of the opinion such permission was 'purely within the Court's discretion.' It then said: 'I would see nothing wrong with that Mr. Turner, and my thought has always been that you would have that right. Now maybe I am wrong, Mr. Rehmann?' (Mr. Rehmann was the trial counsel for the defendants.) Mr. Rehmann replied: 'That's correct, Your Honor.'

While it would be possible to interpret this last-quoted rejoinder, in view of the court's immediately preceding statement, as meaning 'That's right, you're wrong', we do not so construe it. It was defense counsel's apparent expressed agreement that the court had discretion to permit the amendment, and the defendants are not now in a strong position to assert the court was wrong.

We think also the merits of the question require an affirmative holding that the court did not abuse its discretion. The record shows that the remaining plaintiffs, who asked declaratory relief, were residents, voters and taxpayers in the school district. Two of them were members of the school board. While the immediate cause of the trouble, the requirement of the defendants that the board eliminate its ninth grade under pain of removal from the approved list, had been removed by the surrender of the board, it also appears that the defendants had been of the opinion the district should not attempt to maintain any grades beyond the sixth. A possibility of further controversy over this matter, and others, appears. Removal of the district from the list of approved schools would certainly affect the plaintiffs as taxpayers.

The declaratory judgment rules, R.C.P. Nos. 261-266, 58 I.C.A., are to be construed liberally to carry out their purpose. We quoted with approval in Ostrander v. Linn, 237 Iowa 694, 701, 22 N.W.2d 223, 227, from Aetna Casualty & Surety Company v. Quarles, (4 C.C.A.) 92 F.2d 321, 324: "We think that this discretion should be liberally exercised to effectuate the purposes of the statute and thereby afford relief from uncertainty and insecurity with respect to rights, status and other legal relations * * *." See also Borchard Declaratory Judgments, 101; and Katz Investment Co. v. Lynch, 242 Iowa 640, 647, 47 N.W.2d 800, 804, 805, and citations.

Attention should also be called particularly to Rule 262, where it is said: 'Any person * * * whose rights, status or other legal relations are affected by a statute * * * may have determined any question of the construction or validity thereof or arising thereunder, and obtain a declaration of rights, status or legal relations thereunder.' It may not be denied that the plaintiffs, as residents, electors and taxpayers in the school district which had been compelled under threat of losing state tax moneys to alter its curriculum are affected by the challenged statute here, and it would seem beyond argument that they are entitled to 'have determined any question of the construction or validity thereof', as the exact language of the rule provides.

This also answers the contention that the plaintiffs have not shown they are injured by the statute and so may not challenge it. In the first place, Rule 262, supra, gives them the right to have it construed; in the second place they have been injured by it. Their rights and legal relations have been affected by the statute; as they think to their detriment. It is true there must be shown there is a justiciable controversy rather than a mere abstract question. McCarl v. Fernberg, Iowa, 126 N.W.2d 427; Wesselink v. State Department of Health, 248 Iowa 639, 643, 80 N.W.2d 484, 486 Melsha v. Tribune Publishing Company, 243 Iowa 350, 353, 51 N.W.2d 425, 427. But the jurisdiction of the court is not abrogated because the plaintiff may not be entitled to a favorable decree; it is sufficient that a right to a declaratory judgment is shown even though it may be adverse to the one asking it. McCarl v. Fernberg, supra; Wright v. Thompson, 254 Iowa 342, 117 N.W.2d 520, 528.

It has been said by eminent authority that declaratory judgment actions are peculiarly appropriate in controversies between the citizen and the state. In Ostrander v. Linn, 237 Iowa 694, 707, 708, 22 N.W.2d 223, 230, we quoted with approval from an article by Professor Borchard in 52 Yale Law Review, 445, 446: "Possibly in no branch of litigation is the declaration more useful than in the relations between the citizen and the administration. With the growing complexity of government and the constantly increasing invasions of private liberty, with ever widening powers vested in administrative boards and officials, the occasions for conflict and dispute are rapidly augmenting in frequency and importance. * * *

"By the construction placed upon declaratory actions in many jurisdictions the individual, threatened by the imposition of governmental demands and requirements, * * * may put to the test the legality of the restriction...