School Tp. of Franklin v. Wiggins
| Citation | 120 N.W. 1032,142 Iowa 377 |
| Parties | THE SCHOOL TOWNSHIP OF FRANKLIN, Appellant, v. S. W. WIGGINS ET AL., Appellees |
| Decision Date | 06 May 1909 |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Appeal from Greene District Court.--HON. F. M. POWERS, Judge.
SUIT in equity for an injunction and an accounting. Decree for defendants. Plaintiff appeals.
Affirmed.
J. A Henderson and Wilson & Albert, for appellant.
Owen Lovejoy and G. S. Toliver, for appellees.
The litigation involved in this case has twice before been in this court in some of its phases. See 110 Iowa 702, 122 Iowa 602. The plaintiff is a school township which formerly comprised a complete congressional township in Greene County. Located in this township was the little village of Cooper containing about one hundred inhabitants. The inhabitants were desirous of organizing the four sections contiguous and including Cooper into an independent district. They were unable to do so for want of the two hundred inhabitants, required by statute for such purpose. In March, 1896, they went through a certain form of organization, by proceedings irregular and illegal, and declared the organization of the independent district of Cooper, and immediately procured the passage of a curative act by the Legislature, then in session, which was supposed to legalize the corporate existence of such independent district. Directors were elected who assumed the legality of the corporate existence, and proceeded at once to perform their assumed official duties as such directors. They took possession of a schoolhouse included within their alleged territory, and removed therefrom the stove, seats and blackboard, and other equipments, with a view of changing the location of said schoolhouse and removing it to the village of Cooper. Thereupon the plaintiff brought a suit in equity against such directors in their individual capacity, and prayed that they be permanently enjoined from interfering in any manner with such schoolhouse, and that they be required to return such equipments as they had removed therefrom. The issues in that case challenged the legality of the corporate existence of the independent district of Cooper, and challenged the sufficiency and the constitutionality of the alleged curative act. The trial court, after a hearing upon the merits, dismissed the petition, and gave defendants judgment for costs. Upon appeal to this court, such judgment was reversed. See 110 Iowa 702. The ground of the reversal is stated in such opinion of this court. This court did not pass upon the question of the legality of the corporate existence of the independent district. The plaintiff in that case had not only challenged the corporate existence, but it had also pleaded that there had been no settlement between the plaintiff and the alleged new district concerning the corporate assets. Such fact being proved, this court held that it was sufficient of itself to grant plaintiff the relief prayed for, and remanded the case for a decree accordingly. In the district court, after procedendo, a decree was entered granting plaintiff the full relief prayed, and rendering judgment against the defendants for costs, such judgment being entered against them "as directors of said independent district." To that part of the judgment, entering the same against the defendants in their alleged official capacity, the plaintiff took exception, and perfected an appeal therefrom to this court, but afterwards abandoned the same. Thereupon plaintiff commenced a new action, wherein it again challenged the corporate existence of the independent district, and alleged that the defendants, as pretended officers, were performing the functions and asserting and usurping the powers conferred by law upon directors, and that they were levying and collecting taxes, and spending the same wrongfully, without warrant of law within their alleged district, which they had carved out of the plaintiff's territory. Upon a trial of this case the district court again entered a judgment against the plaintiff, dismissing its petition, and for costs. Upon appeal to this court, such judgment was reversed. See 122 Iowa 602. By reference to the opinion of this court, it will be seen that by adverse rulings the trial court had reduced the plaintiff's case in form to a proceeding in quo warranto, and had transferred the case to the law side of the docket. For these and other erroneous rulings the case was reversed and remanded for trial upon the equity side of the court. After remanding the defendants pleaded the decree in the former action as an adjudication. It pleaded also a general denial. The trial court entered a decree for the defendants without specifying the grounds thereof. From such decree this appeal has been taken.
We will give our first consideration to the question of former adjudication. The first case is known in the record as No. 3,770, and we will so designate it. If the plea of former adjudication can be sustained, such holding must be based upon the last judgment entered by the district court in case No. 3,770. The first judgment entered in such case can not be deemed an adjudication because of its reversal on appeal. The reversing opinion was not an adjudication. It merely settled the questions upon which the reversal was based, and remanded the case as a whole, for further proceedings of the lower court in harmony therewith. After procedendo the district court had complete jurisdiction therein. The question is, What did it do? What was its determination of the distinct issues presented in the pleadings?
It is undisputed that the issues presented by the pleadings in the case at bar were all presented in the pleadings of case No 3,770, and that the evidence upon such issues was substantially the same in both cases. In the first case, these issues were presented in this wise: The plaintiff brought its action against the defendants as individuals, charging them, in legal effect, as continuing trespassers, and asking an injunction against them. The defendants answered, admitting the acts complained of, and averring by way of justification that they were directors of the independent district of Cooper. They averred, in substance, that the school property in question was within the limits of such independent district, and was its property, and that they did the acts complained of as the proper officers of such independent district. In its reply to the answer the plaintiff challenged the corporate existence of the independent district of Cooper, and challenged the legality of its organization and the constitutionality of the curative act, all in substantially the language of the petition in the present case. By way of amendment to its reply the plaintiff filed a further plea in avoidance, which by its terms was made secondary to the issues made by the original reply. This plea was put forth as a sort of emergency plea, which avoided without confessing, and which called for consideration only in the emergency that the findings of the court should be adverse to ...
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