People ex rel. Leighty v. Young
| Decision Date | 08 February 1922 |
| Docket Number | No. 13565.,13565. |
| Citation | 301 Ill. 67,133 N.E. 693 |
| Parties | PEOPLE ex rel. LEIGHTY v. YOUNG et al. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Application by the People, on the relation of Ralph Leighty, against Marion Young and others, for leave to file an information in the nature of quo warranto to test the validity of the organization of community high school district No. 281. From a judgment denying leave to file, relator appeals.
Reversed and remanded.
Appeal from Circuit Court, Fulton County; Robert J. Grier, judge.
Edward J. Brundage, Atty. Gen., and Flack & Kerman, of Macomb, for appellant.
Harvey H. Atherton and Glenn Ratcliff, both of Lewiston, for appellees.
This appeal is prosecuted to review a judgment of the circuit court of Fulton county denying leave to file an information in the nature of quo warranto to test the validity of the organization of community high school district No. 281, comprising territory in the counties of Fulton, Schuyler, and McDonough. The high school district comprises territory contained in 14 common school districts. It includes 58 sections of land, 26 of which are located in Fulton county and 16 in each of the counties of Schuyler and McDonough. The district is 10 miles long and 10 miles wide, but is very irregular in shape. The village of Vermont is located in Fulton county, about a mile and a half from the point where the three counties corner. The village is located at a point equidistant from the eastern and western boundaries of the district, but is within 2 miles of the north boundary of the district. The north portion of the district is a compact rectangular block 10 miles east and west and 4 miles north and south, except that two sections on the north edge immediately north of the village are omitted. Lying immediately south of the west six-tenths of this block is another rectangular block 6 miles east and west and 2 miles north and south. Extending south from the middle of this block is another black 4 miles north and south and 2 miles east and west. Traveling by section lines, it is 10 miles from the southwest corner of this part of the district to the village of Vermont.
It appears from the petition for leave to file the information that the petition of the requisite number of legal voters in the territory proposed to be organized into a community high school district was filed with the county superintendent of schools of Fulton county; the intention of the petitioners being to comply with the requirements of section 89a of the School Law (Hurd's Rev. St. 1919, c. 122). Pursuant to the petition the county superintendent of Fulton county called an election, and designated one polling place for the holding of the election. He also designated three persons to act as judges and clerk at the election, without specifying which of said persons were to act as judges and which as clerk. The election was held January 24, 1920, and women were permitted to vote at the election. There were 443 votes for establishing the district and 142 votes against it.
The grounds upon which the legality of the organization of the district is challenged are: (1) The county superintendent of schools of Fulton county had no authority to call the election, because less than half of the territory described in the petition was in Fulton county; (2) the election was void because the county superintendent did not specify which of the three men appointed to conduct the election should act as judges and which should act as clerk; (3) the election was void because women, who were not legal voters, were permitted to vote at the election; and (4) the territory described in the petition and included within the boundaries of the district is not compact.
May 10, 1921, there became effective in this state an act to legalize the organization of certain high school districts. Laws 1921, p. 797. That act declares all contiguous territory wherein a majority of the inhabitants of said territory voting on the proposition have voted, at an election called for the purpose by the county superintendent of schools, in favor of the organization of such territory into a community high school district, and where they have at a subsequent election, similarly called and held, chosen a board of education to be legally and validly organized and established as a high school district. This act purports to cure all the defects in the organization of the district under consideration. The act clearly disposes of the first three grounds urged against the legality of this district. The Legislature had the right to declare this territory to be a school district without the formalities of a petition or an election and the validating act is broad enough to include within its terms the district in question. What we have said in People v. Opie, No. 14166, 133 N. E. 689, and the cases there cited, fully covers this holding.
There is, however, a new question presented by the application of the act of May 10 to the district in question. Section 89a of the School Law, under which it was attempted to organize this district, required that the territory to be organized into a community high school district must be ‘contiguous and compact.’ The validating act omits the requirement that the territory be compact, and provides that all contiguous territory coming within the terms of the act shall be a valid and existing high school district. In its broadest sense ‘contiguous' means that which touches or joins at the edge or boundary. It might be said, therefore, that a district 100 miles long and 2 miles wide would be composed of contiguous territory, but when applied to a school district we cannot hold that the word ‘contiguous' can be given this broad meaning. The Constitution commands the Legislature to ‘provide a thorough and efficient system of free schools whereby all children of this state may receive a good common school education.’ It cannot be said that a system which places the school house at a point so remote that the children of school age cannot reach it conveniently is either thorough or efficient. In order to make a school system thorough and efficient the territory of the state must be divided into districts sufficiently compact to enable the children to travel from their respective homes to the school building in a reasonable length of time and with a reasonable degree of comfort. It is known to every one who knows anything about Illinois roads and Illinois weather that children cannot travel 9 or 10 miles to school over ordinary country roads in bad winter weather. The term ‘contiguous,’ as used in the validating act under consideration, must be construed in the light of the command of the Constitution, and must be construed to mean territory so compact and so closely united and so nearly adjacent to the school building that all the children residing in the district may conveniently travel from their homes to...
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...the General Assembly." DeRolph, 78 Ohio St.3d at 198, 677 N.E.2d at 737. Further, I note the applicability of People ex rel. Leighty v. Young, 301 Ill. 67, 71, 133 N.E. 693 (1921), where this court reasoned: "[i]t cannot be said that a system which places the school house at a point so remo......
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