People ex rel. Tudor v. Vance

• Decision Date: 11 October 1940
• Docket Number: No. 25662.,25662.
• Citation: 374 Ill. 415,29 N.E.2d 673
• Parties: PEOPLE ex rel. TUDOR et al. v. VANCE et al.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

374 Ill. 415

29 N.E.2d 673

PEOPLE ex rel. TUDOR et al.

v.VANCE et al.

No. 25662.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Oct. 11, 1940.

Quo warranto proceeding by the People, on the relation of L. A. Tudor and others, against S. B. Vance and others, attacking the legality of Community High School DistrictNo. 195 and the right of the high school board to hold office.From a judgment dismissing the relators' amended petition and information, the relators appeal.

Affirmed.Appeal from Circuit Court, Fayette County; J. T. Bullington, judge.

Hogan & Coale, of Taylorville, Will P. Welker, of Vandalia, and Harold Broverman, of Tayloriville, for appellants.

Charles R. Myers and Will M. Albert, both of Vandalia, for appellees.

STONE, Justice.

This cause is here on appeal from the judgment of the circuit court of Fayette county dismissing appellants' amended petition and information in quo warranto attacking the legality of Community High School DistrictNo. 195 and the right of the high school board to hold office.

The original information charged that the district was not legally organized, and appears to have been a friendly suit.AppellantsAugust Yakel, Irvin Hobbs and others, however, on leave of court, filed an amended petition and information.The defendants the community high school board answered setting out the proceedings under which the district was organized.Evidence was heard on behalf of plaintiffs and defendants, after which a motion of defendants to quash the writ and information was allowed.The court found that the district was duly organized and that the defendants were duly elected and rightfully holding the office of members of the school board.

Appellants Yakel and Hobbs bring the cause here assigning a number of errors.The one on which they principally rely, and the only one argued, is that the district, as formed, does not constitute one community and is not composed of compact and contiguous territory as those terms have been fefined by this court.

In People v. Young, 301 Ill. 67, 133 N.E. 693, andPeople v. Kirkham, 301 Ill. 45, 133 N.E. 696, this court held that, under the demand of the constitution, art. 8, § 1, Smith-Hurd Stats., that the legislature provide a thorough and efficient system of free schools whereby all children of the State may receive a good common school education, a schoolhouse placed at a point so remote that the children of school age of the district cannot conveniently reach it, is neither thorough nor efficient, and that such a district is not properly organized, and that, in order to comply with the constitutional mandate, it is necessary that the territory of the district be sufficiently compact to enable children to travel from their respective homes to the school building in a reasonable length of time and with a reasonable degree of comfort.

In support of the contention that the district here under consideration violates these requirements, appellants' witnesses testified that by reason of the character of the soil in the district, number of creeks, the character of the lowlands adjoining the creeks, the overflow of the streams over the bridges and roads, it was impossible at times from December 1 to April 1 to maintain bus or truck schedules to convey students to and from school.Appellants' counsel admit that the district is contiguous and compact so far as its territorial extent is concerned, but they argue that, by reason of the physical condition of the roads in the district, it is not contiguous and compact under the rule established by this court.It is also contended that parts of the district on the east side thereof are closer to St. Elmo, a town lying east, than to Brownstown in the district where the school is located, and should, therefore, be a part of the St. Elmo district.This district, as shown by the plat in the record, is about 8 miles east and west ans about 12 miles north and south.It forms a perfect parallelogram.Brownstown is...