Richardson v. Braham

• Decision Date: 03 July 1933
• Docket Number: 28719
• Citation: 249 N.W. 557,125 Neb. 142
• Parties: LEE RICHARDSON ET AL., APPELLEES, v. WILLIAM J. BRAHAM ET AL., APPELLANTS
• Court: Nebraska Supreme Court

249 N.W. 557

125 Neb. 142

LEE RICHARDSON ET AL., APPELLEES, v. WILLIAM J. BRAHAM ET AL., APPELLANTS

No. 28719

Supreme Court of Nebraska

July 3, 1933

APPEAL from the district court for Lincoln county: J. LEONARD TEWELL, JUDGE. Reversed and dismissed.

Judgment of the district court reversed and suit dismissed.

Syllabus by the Court.

1. Boards of education are vested with power to adopt reasonable rules and regulations.

2. The motives prompting members of a board of education in exercising, within reasonable limits, the power committed to them in the interest of the public are immaterial.

3. Power to act and reasonableness of action are proper tests of the validity of rules and regulations enacted by a board of education.

4. A rule or regulation, adopted by a school board, will not be held invalid on the ground that it is unreasonable and arbitrary, or that it invades private rights, unless the evidence of such facts is clear and satisfactory .

5. During school hours, general education and the control of pupils who attend public schools are in the hands of school boards, superintendents, principals and teachers and this control extends to health, proper surroundings, necessary discipline, promotion of morality, and other wholesome influences, while parental authority is temporarily superseded.

6. A board of education, having power to make rules and regulations for the conduct and management of public schools may provide for one session daily and forbid pupils to leave the campus during school hours.

Appeal from District Court, Lincoln County; Tewell, Judge.

Suit by Lee Richardson and others against William J. Braham and others. From an adverse decree, defendants appeal.

Judgment reversed, and suit dismissed.

E. H. Evans and Urban Simon, for appellants.

Halligan, Beatty & Halligan and Milton C. Murphy, contra.

Heard before GOSS, C. J., ROSE, DAY and PAINE, JJ., and BEGLEY, LANDIS and MEYER, District Judges.

OPINION

ROSE, J.

This is a suit for an injunction to prevent the board of education, the superintendent and the principal of the senior high school in the North Platte district from enforcing the following regulation:

"Be It Resolved, That the senior high school be and is a one-session school with a lunch period of not more than 25 minutes, and that no students be permitted to leave the school grounds between 9 a. m. and 3:05 p. m., except such students as live quite close to the high school building, and whose parents request in writing that they be permitted to go home for lunch."

This regulation was adopted by the school board September 5, 1932, and by its order was enforced for a time by the superintendent and principal of the school. Plaintiffs are parents of pupils.

Prior to the adoption of the regulation, Cora Haffner conducted a cafeteria adjacent to the school grounds and it was patronized by some of the pupils. For the accommodation of pupils generally, the school district operated a cafeteria in the high school building. A city zoning ordinance prevented other business enterprises near the school grounds which were located a considerable distance from the business district of North Platte.

The principal grounds on which the injunction was sought may be summarized thus: Mismanagement of high school cafeteria; meals not warm; food not properly prepared; denial of requests to permit pupils to leave school grounds for noon lunch; interference with prerogative of parents to prescribe diet and select food for their children; enforcing patronage of high school cafeteria and boycotting Haffner cafeteria; want of power to make the regulation.

The allowance of an injunction was resisted on the grounds that the adoption of the regulation was a proper and valid exercise of administrative power to control the public high school, the high school property and the pupils in the interests of public education, public health, public morals and public welfare generally, while the pupils are under the care and subject to the jurisdiction of the board of education, the superintendent, principal and teachers.

The district court held that the regulation was void and rendered a decree enjoining the enforcement thereof. Defendants appealed.

The validity of the regulation is the question presented by the appeal. Much of the testimony adduced at the trial was directed to the motives of the school directors who adopted the resolution quoted. As a general rule the motives that prompt state lawmakers, city councilmen and members of administrative bodies, such as school boards, in exercising within reasonable limits power committed to them in the interests of the public, are immaterial. Power to act and reasonableness of action are proper tests of the validity of laws, ordinances and regulations. Promptings of politics or partisanship in the enactment of a statute are not sufficient grounds for judicial interference with an act of the legislature. State v. Moores,...