Sligh v. Bowers

• Decision Date: 12 February 1902
• Parties: SLIGH et al. v. BOWERS et al.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

40 S.E. 885

62 S.C. 409

SLIGH et al. v. BOWERS et al.

Supreme Court of South Carolina

February 12, 1902

Appeal from common pleas circuit court of Newberry county; Gage Judge.

Action by J. A. Sligh and others, taxpayers of school district No 19, against George W. Bowers and others and the county board of education of Newberry county. From an order granting a temporary injunction, defendants appeal. Affirmed.

Hunt Hunt & Hunter, for appellants. Schumpert & Holloway, for appellees.

GARY A. J.

This is an action for injunction by plaintiffs, as patrons of school district No. 19 of Newberry county, arising out of a contention over the location of the school building in said district. The appeal is from an order overruling a demurrer to the complaint which (omitting the formal parts thereof) is as follows: "(5) That said school district was established, surveyed, and laid off by metes and bounds in the year 1893, and the school house site for the white children of said district was located and established by the then school trustees for said district at a point on the ridge between Sligh's Depot, on the Columbia, Newberry & Laurens Railroad, and the residence of Dr. D. H. Werts, which site was afterwards confirmed by three successive county boards of education, and that when petitions were presented to two of said boards asking for a change of said site the granting of same was as many times refused. (6) That the site selected for the location of said school house was by actual survey ascertained to be practically the center of the area as well as the center of population thereof, and the free public schools have been conducted in the school house located and established as aforesaid, from the time it was so established until the school house was destroyed by fire on or about the first day of March, 1901. (7) That in the year 1893 the land on which the public school house was erected and afterwards destroyed, as aforesaid, was deeded by J. A Sligh, one of the above plaintiffs, and the owner thereof, free of all cost, to said school district 'for school purposes for white children,' and it is now owned by and it is in the possession of the school trustees of the said school district. (8) That the defendant trustees, in wanton disregard of the right and convenience of these plaintiffs and many other residents and patrons of said school district, and in utter disregard of the action of their predecessors in office in establishing a permanent site for the school house to be used by the free public school of said district, are now building and erecting with the public funds set apart for said school district a school house for said school district at another place, and at a point quite distant from the center of area and population, and within a few hundred yards of said school district No. 19 and school district No. _____. (9) That to erect a school house for said district at the point where the defendant trustees are now building it is not only without warrant of law, but their said action practically deprives the plaintiffs, and many other patrons, of those educational privileges to which they are entitled under the free public school laws of the state, and thereby will do them and others irreparable injury. (10) That the proposed new site on which the said trustees are now erecting a school house with the free public funds of said district was not selected according to law, and all expenditures of the public money thereon are without lawful authority, and do these plaintiffs, and all others in like circumstances, a great damage. (11) That the said acts and doings of the defendant trustees in relating or tending to the building of a school house for said district at any point, or on any site, other than the one heretofore selected, and deeded by J. A. Sligh on the 16th day of December, 1893, are in bad faith and in direct opposition to the wishes and the...