McPhail v. Tax Collector

• Decision Date: 12 December 1925
• Docket Number: (No. 9701.)<SMALL><SUP>*</SUP></SMALL&gt
• Citation: 280 S.W. 260
• Parties: McPHAIL et al. v. TAX COLLECTOR OF VAN ZANDT COUNTY et al.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

280 S.W. 260

McPHAIL et al. v. TAX COLLECTOR OF VAN ZANDT COUNTY et al.

(No. 9701.)^*

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas. Dallas.

December 12, 1925.

Rehearing Denied January 16, 1926.

Appeal from District Court, Van Zandt County; Joel R. Bond, Judge.

Suit by J. D. McPhail and others against the Tax Collector of Van Zandt County and others. From a decree refusing most of the relief sought, plaintiffs appeal. Affirmed in part, and reversed and rendered in part.

Gentry & Gentry, of Tyler, and R. M. Lively, of Canton, for appellants.

James M. Shields, of Canton, and Wynne & Wynne, of Wills Point, for appellees.

LOONEY, J.

This appeal is from an interlocutory order of the trial judge on an application for a temporary injunction. Appellants, as taxpaying property owners in the Colfax high school district of Van Zandt county, brought suit against the state and county tax collector of Van Zandt county, the county superintendent of public instructions, and the county school trustees of said county; also the board of trustees of the Colfax rural high school district, to enjoin the collection of taxes levied by the trustees on property within the district belonging to appellants.

Their prayer for temporary relief was that the county superintendent should be restrained from in any manner recognizing as such the board of trustees of the Colfax rural high school district, and from approving any act of said trustees; that the trustees of said high school district should be restrained from performing any act in furthering said high school enterprise; that the county school trustees should be restrained from recognizing any acts of the trustees of the high school district; that they should be required to recognize the Clowers common school district and the Colfax common school district as they existed prior to the attempted consolidation of them into the Colfax rural high school district; and that the state and county tax collector should be restrained from recognizing the assessment of the property of appellants and others in the high school district, and from collecting any taxes assessed against their property and the property of others situated in the pretended high school district.

On hearing, the judge refused all relief sought, except wherein appellants prayed that the funds derived from the collection of taxes on property situated in the high school district should not be used for the maintenance of the Colfax rural high school, or to pay any indebtedness of said district, unless the qualified electors in the high school district should decide by a majority vote to assume the indebtedness of the common school districts, and, until this result is attained, the tax money collected should be expended exclusively for the purpose of maintaining schools in, and paying the indebtedness of, the common school district from which the fund was collected. Both sides complain of the order of the court.

The facts are these: After the Act of the 39th Legislature became effective, being chapter 59, providing for a better system of rural high schools for the state, the county school trustees of Van Zandt county, in conformity to the provisions of said act, formed the Colfax rural high school district by grouping two contiguous common school districts, to wit, the Colfax district and the Clowers district, having less than 400 scholastic population, and, as the district was created subsequent to the date for the election of trustees fixed by law, the county board appointed 7 trustees for the district.

Immediately after their appointment, the trustees organized the board, and levied a tax on the property in the district at the same rate that had been theretofore levied by the trustees in the respective common school districts. The trustees appointed a tax assessor, a board of equalization, and caused the property in the consolidated district to be assessed and the values thereof equalized by the board of equalization. The tax rolls as thus completed were delivered to the county tax collector for collection prior to September 1, 1925, but were not sworn to by the assessor, nor certified to by the board of equalization until September 18, 1925. By an oversight of the assessor, the property of J. W. and C. W. Mullens, two landowners and property tax payers in the district was omitted from the tax rolls.

The assessment of the property in the high school district was accomplished in this way: The assessor copied the rendition sheets of the taxpayers within the consolidated district made to the county assessor, fixing the value of the property thereon the same as it had been rendered by the owners to the county assessor. The board of equalization in performing its duty raised these values practically double.

Lands in the consolidated district were of the actual fair market value of from $25 to $30 per acre, and appear on the tax rolls of the high school district as thus assessed and equalized, at from $20 to $25 per acre; in other words, the land as assessed for taxation in the high school district is not valued in excess of its true fair market value. The record fails to disclose anything with reference to the rendition of any other class of property.

The object sought to be attained by the officials of the high school district in levying the tax, assessing and equalizing values of the property above mentioned, was to raise a sufficient sum of money to pay the bonded and other indebtedness of the two common school districts, and to maintain the high school and the elementary schools within the consolidated district. At the time of the consolidation there existed against the Colfax common school district a bonded indebtedness of approximately $9,500, and against the Clowers common school district a bonded indebtedness of over $1,000, but less than $1,500.

The propositions urged by appellants for reversal, as gathered from their original petition, will appear from the discussion as follows:

1. That the Act of the 39th Legislature, c. 59, p. 204, of the Session Acts, by authority of which the county school trustees of Van Zandt county formed the Colfax rural high school district, is unconstitutional and void, for the reason that it authorizes the county board, of its own motion, to consolidate common school districts into high school districts without a majority favorable vote of the qualified electors of said common school districts.

The act called in question in section 1 empowers the county board of school trustees, of its own motion, to create rural high schools by grouping contiguous common school districts having less than 400 scholastic population. The pertinent portion of the act is as follows:

"Section 1. In each organized county in this state and in any county which shall hereafter be organized, the county board of school trustees shall have the authority to form one or more rural high school districts, by grouping contiguous common school districts having less than four hundred scholastic population and independent school districts having less than one hundred fifty scholastic population, for the purpose of establishing and operating rural high schools. * * *"

Thus we see the authority given the county board is absolute, and not dependent upon a prior vote having been taken by the qualified electors of the districts involved. It is further apparent that it was not the purpose of the Legislature to require either a petition or an election as a condition precedent to the action of the county board in creating rural high schools of the class mentioned, for the reason that in the following section 3, with reference to the creation of rural high schools containing more than 7 elementary districts, the action of the county board is conditioned upon a majority favorable vote by the qualified electors of the district. By expressly requiring a vote in the latter instance, the idea is excluded that such condition precedent was intended to apply to the action of the board in creating high school districts of less than 400 scholastics.

The Constitution, § 3, art. 7, with reference to the power of the Legislature to deal with the subject of public education in the creation of school districts, etc., provides:

* * * "And the Legislature may also provide for the formation of school districts by general or special law, without the local notice required in other cases of special legislation; and all such school districts, whether created by general or special laws, may embrace parts of two or more counties. And the Legislature shall be authorized to pass laws for the assessment and collection of taxes in all said districts, and for the management and control of the public school or schools of such district, whether such districts are composed...