Perryman v. Bethune

• Decision Date: 07 June 1886
• Citation: 1 S.W. 231,89 Mo. 158
• Parties: PERRYMAN v. BETHUNE and others.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

1 S.W. 231

89 Mo. 158

PERRYMAN v. BETHUNE and others.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

June 7, 1886.

1. SCHOOLS AND SCHOOL-DISTRICTS — ORGANIZATION OF DISTRICT — MEETING.

Under the laws of Missouri (Revision 1879, § 7021) the call for the first meeting to organize a school-district must proceed from tax-payers residing within the territory to be incorporated.

2. SAME — EFFECT OF STATUTES.

These statutory requirements are jurisdictional, and failure to comply with them invalidates the organization, and all taxation resulting therefrom.

Appeal from Mississippi circuit court.

Suit in equity by one tax-payer, in behalf of himself and others, to test the validity of a school tax. Decree for defendant, and appeal therefrom by plaintiff.

H. C. O' Bryan, for plaintiff in error. Wade & Boone, for defendant in error.

BLACK, J.

Plaintiff brought this suit for himself, and all other persons similarly situated, to restrain the defendant, the county clerk of Mississippi county, from extending a school tax of 65 cents on the $100 valuation upon property situate in what is claimed to be district No. 1, township 24, range 17, in that county. The court adjudged the tax to be bad in part and good in part, directed the clerk to extend the tax at the rate of 40 cents, and enjoined the excess. From this decree the plaintiff appealed.

1. Section 7022, Rev. St., contemplates the creation of school-districts only where the territory has not been previously organized for the same purposes. Still the claim made by the appellant that the inhabitants of this territory were previously incorporated for school purposes by the act of February 27, 1851, and the amendatory act of December 18, 1863, cannot be sustained. These acts do incorporate the Wolf Island Educational Society, but they do not undertake to incorporate the inhabitants of any particular territory whatever. We see nothing in them which can be said to organize the township and range in question for school purposes. School-districts may therefore be created under the general laws within that territory.

2. The attempt to organize the district in question was made in 1880, and the tax in question is the tax for that year. The record shows that on the third March, 1880, three persons made and posted notices for a meeting of the qualified voters of a part of township 24, range 16, (not 17,) for the purpose of organizing a school-district, giving a general description of the territory to be created into a district, and...