School Dist. No. 1 v. School Dist. No. 4

• Decision Date: 05 March 1888
• Citation: 7 S.W. 285,94 Mo. 612
• Parties: School District Number 1, Appellant, v. School District Number 4
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

7 S.W. 285

94 Mo. 612

School District Number 1, Appellant, v. School District Number 4

Supreme Court of Missouri

March 5, 1888

Appeal from Cass Circuit Court. -- Hon. N. M. Givan, Judge.

Affirmed.

Wooldridge & Daniel for appellant.

(1) A demurrer to the evidence admits all facts which the evidence introduced by the adverse party tends to prove, or of which there is any evidence, however slight, and all inferences which logically and reasonably can be drawn from the evidence. Buesching v. Gaslight Co., 73 Mo. 220-31; Frick v. Railroad, 75 Mo. 595, 601; Noeninger v Vogt, 88 Mo. 589-92; Railroad v. Foster, 2 West. Rep. 299. (2) The petition was presented to the directors of all the districts. Notice is proved to have been given in district number 1, and elections were held in districts 1, 2, 3, and 8. District number 4 (defendant) did not hold an election, but disregarded the petition. The presumption is, that in the districts voting notice was given as directed by statute. Brant v. Brock, 4 New Eng Rep. 716. (3) District number 1 (plaintiff) voted in favor of the change, and the other districts voting voted against it. The matter was referred to the county commissioner, who informed himself as to the necessities of the situation, and transmitted his decision to the various district clerks, and his decision is final. R. S., sec. 2023. (4) Plaintiff and defendant and all the other districts of the township adopted the boundaries respectively as established by the county commissioner, and all have asserted and exercised corporate powers over the territory embraced in these boundaries, and made and filed their respective enumeration lists and lists of taxpayers with the clerk of the county court, with district boundaries as thus established by said commissioner, and have acquiesced in and adapted their action to these boundaries. R. S., secs 7049-50. To unsettle the action of the commissioner and the boundaries so adopted by the districts, would produce great public inconvenience and confusion, and also injury and private damage. Can the legality of the organization of the districts, with their boundaries so established and accepted, be attacked collaterally? Parman v. School Directors, 49 Mich. 63; Stockle v. Lilsbee, 41 Mich. 615; Rice v. McClellan, 58 Mo. 116, 121-2; State v. Evans, 83 Mo. 319-22; Stamper v. Roberts, 90 Mo. 683; State ex rel. v. Young, 84 Mo. 90. (5) If there were irregularities in the changes of the boundaries of the districts, they were cured by the adoption by the various districts of the changes made. Rice v. McClellan, 58 Mo. 116; Clement v. Everett, 29 Mich. 19, 22.

Railey & Burney for respondent.

(1) The petition to the directors was insufficient, in not setting out the changes desired to be made in the school districts. R. S., sec. 7023; Stamper v. Roberts, 90 Mo. 683; State ex rel. v. Riley, 85 Mo. 156; Mason v. Kennedy, 89 Mo. 23. (2) The giving of the notice to the directors was a jurisdictional fact. State ex rel. v. Young, 84 Mo. 90. (3) Some of the districts altogether failed to vote, and there was nothing on which the commissioner could act. R. S., sec. 7023. (4) The powers and duties of the directors, as well as the corporators, are prescribed and limited by statute. The directors cannot change the boundaries of districts; if changed, it must be done by vote of the citizens at an annual meeting. It follows as a necessary consequence that the directors, not having power to make the change in the first instance, cannot make such change indirectly by estoppel or ratification. Buchanan v. School District, 25 Mo.App. 85; Johnson v. School District, 67 Mo. 319; State to use v. Tiedeman, 69 Mo. 515; Fluty v. School District, 4 S.W. 278; Smith v. Board of Education, 58 Mo. 297, 301.

Brace J. Ray, J., absent.

OPINION

Brace, J.

Prior to the annual school meetings in April, 1882, township 45, range 31, in Cass county, had been organized into school districts. Plaintiff and defendant were districts in said township. The other districts, numbers 2, 3, 4, and 8, the remaining territory not included in these districts, formed parts of districts in adjoining townships. On the fourteenth of March, 1882, a copy of the following petition was delivered to the president and clerk of the board of directors of said district numbered 4:

"March 14, 1882.

"To the Hon. Boards of Directors of School Districts Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Township 45, Range 31:

"The undersigned, your petitioners and taxpayers in District No. 1, Township 45, Range 31, would respectfully represent that the school districts in Peculiar township, as at present constituted, fail to accomplish the objects for which such districts are usually organized. To the end, therefore, that the whole township and the patrons of the public schools may be better accommodated, we desire that the township be reorganized into new school districts, and request your Board to take such action as the law directs in the premises."

Signed by James P. Taylor and twelve others, and a copy thereof was presented to all the other districts in said township, but at what time does not appear. There was no evidence tending to prove that any notices were posted in any of the districts of said township of said proposed reorganization of said township into new school districts, except in district numbered 1. In regard to that district, one witness, J. P. Taylor, testified: "I put up in district number 1 notices of the election on the question of reorganizing the districts according to the petition twenty days before the first Tuesday in April, 1882."

There was no evidence tending to show that any vote was taken on the proposition in district number 4, or in any of the outlying districts at the annual meetings held on the last-mentioned date. District number 1 voted in favor of the proposition, and districts numbers 2, 3, and 8, voted against the proposition. After the annual meetings in 1882, the matter of redistricting the township was referred to John T. Weathers, who was then, and afterwards until the trial of this case in the circuit court, school commissioner of Cass county; and he, in March, 1883, redistricted the township and determined the boundaries of the various districts, and thereafter, but at what date does not appear, made a plat of the township showing the boundaries of the school districts therein, as thus changed by him, and sent the same to the clerks of the several boards of directors in the township. It does not appear that such plat was entered upon the records of any of the districts, but at some time thereafter the same was filed in the office of the county clerk. By this reorganization the commissioner undertook to establish one entirely new district (number 10), and to change the boundaries of every other district in the township, and in making this change, detached from the territory of district number 4, defendant herein, and added to that of district number 1, plaintiff herein, an area of nine hundred and sixty acres. The enumeration list and list of taxpayers made by the boards of directors of all the districts in the township, for the year 1884, and the levy by the county court of Cass county for school taxes for said year, were made upon said districts as laid off by said Weathers, commissioner.

Prior to this redistricting by the school commissioner, a tax had been levied for building a schoolhouse by district number 1 which was collected and applied in payment for such building in said district after such redistricting. On the tenth of December, 1883, the board of directors of district number 1, appointed one Willis Taylor to proceed with some person to be appointed by district number 4, to determine the valuation of the school property of said district number 1, and of the proportion thereof of those in the territory detached from said district and attached to district number 4, by the school commissioner. Taylor notified said defendant district of his appointment, but the defendant refused to...