Luce School Township v. School City of Rockport
| Decision Date | 21 December 1927 |
| Docket Number | 12,934 |
| Citation | 159 N.E. 164,86 Ind.App. 641 |
| Parties | LUCE SCHOOL TOWNSHIP, ET AL. v. SCHOOL CITY OF ROCKPORT ET AL |
| Court | Indiana Appellate Court |
From Spencer Circuit Court; Oscar C. Minor, Judge.
Action by the School City of Rockport and others against Luce School Township and others. From a judgment for plaintiff, the defendants appeal.
Affirmed.
Ralph E. Roberts, for appellants.
L. N Savage, for appellees.
OPINION
This is an action by the appellees to recover money alleged to be due on school transfers from Luce school township, in Spencer county, to the school corporation of the city of Rockport, in two paragraphs. First paragraph declares upon an open account and seeks recovery for the education of certain pupils residing in Luce school township, who attended school in the city of Rockport during the school years of 1918, 1919, 1920 1921, 1922.
The second paragraph is based on transfers issued by the trustee of Luce school township and the county superintendent of schools to the high school of the school city of Rockport, covering the period from September, 1918, to June, 1923, for certain pupils alleged to have been duly transferred from the schools of Luce school township to the schools of the school city of Rockport.
The court sustained a demurrer to a plea in abatement filed by appellants, and overruled their demurrer to each paragraph of the complaint. A trial by the court resulted in a judgment in favor of appellees for $ 3,944.
Appellants' first contention is that the court had no jurisdiction over the subject-matter; that the law requires the creditor school corporation, on the refusal of the debtor school corporation to pay, to make a written statement to the county auditor, who is by law given the power to hear and determine the matter.
In support of this contention, appellants cite §§ 6920, 6922, 6924, 6930 Burns 1926. Section 6920 Burns 1926 is § 2 of an act regulating the transfer of children from one school corporation to another, fixing the price of tuition, and repealing all laws in conflict therewith, as amended in 1921, Acts 1921 p. 180, and provides that the school trustee, board of school trustees or commissioners of the school corporation in which the transferred child resides shall pay out of the special school fund, or out of the tuition fund, at his discretion, to the officer of the school corporation to which the child is transferred, an amount equal to the per capita cost of education in the corporation to which the child is transferred. Section 6922 Burns 1926, supra, is § 4 of the above mentioned act of 1901, and provides that if the debtor corporation refuses to pay any sum claimed to be due by another corporation, the creditor corporation shall make a written statement of the case to the county auditor, who shall have power to hear and determine the matter, and if the auditor holds any given sum is due the complaining corporation, he shall, at the next semi-annual distribution of school revenues, withhold such sum from the amount otherwise due the debtor corporation.
Section 6924 Burns 1926, supra, is § 1 of an act concerning the transfer of school children, approved March, 1907, Acts 1907 p. 321, as amended in 1909, Acts 1909 p. 331. This section, as enacted in 1907, provided that the creditor corporation should file a statement showing all transfers with the name of each child and the amount due because of the transfer. With whom this statement should be filed was not disclosed. A duplicate of this statement was required to be filed with the debtor corporation. The county auditor, at the July distribution of the same year, was required to deduct a certain amount from the apportionment of the tuition fund and to transfer the amount so deducted to the amount apportioned to the creditor corporation. No provision was made for the settlement of any dispute that might arise between the two school corporations. In case of transfers from a corporation in one county to a corporation in another county, a certified copy of the statement between the counties was required to be filed with the state superintendent, who should make the adjustment between the counties. By Section 2 of this last act all of the act of 1901 in conflict therewith was expressly repealed. Section 1 of the act of 1907, as amended in 1909, omits all provisions for the filing of statements with the county auditor and state superintendent of public instruction and the deduction and transfer by them of the funds from the debtor corporation to the creditor corporation.
A decision of the questions involved does not call for a determination of the power of the legislature to confer judicial powers on the county auditor, or whether said § 6922 Burns 1926, deprived...
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