State ex rel. Baria v. Alexander

• Decision Date: 17 November 1930
• Docket Number: 29109
• Citation: 130 So. 754,158 Miss. 557
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE ex rel. BARIA v. ALEXANDER, COUNTY SUPERINTENDENT OF EDUCATION

130 So. 754

158 Miss. 557

STATE ex rel. BARIA v. ALEXANDER, COUNTY SUPERINTENDENT OF EDUCATION

No. 29109

Supreme Court of Mississippi

November 17, 1930

Division B

1 OFFICERS.

Where several persons are authorized to perform public service or do act of public nature as organized body, requiring deliberation, they must be convened in body.

2. SCHOOLS AND SCHOOL DISTRICTS. After election of relator as teacher, two of three trustees could not, in conjunction with county superintendent, reassign relator to another school (Code 1930, sections 6570, 6629, 6646).

The school in question was one of three schools composing a consolidated school district which, having failed to erect a central building, was operating under authority of Code 1930 section 6646. The trustees of the school elected relator assistant teacher of P. School in district, but county superintendent refused to contract with relator because two of trustees of school district had requested him to reassign relator and another teacher so that relator should teach in K. school and latter teach in P. school, and he therefore contracted with latter teacher.

3. SCHOOLS AND SCHOOL DISTRICTS.

Where trustees elect teacher for school, county superintendent must contract with such teacher (Code 1930, sections 6570, 6629).

4 MANDAMUS.

Where county superintendent refuses to contract with teacher elected by trustees of school, teacher may resort to mandamus (Code 1930, sections 6570, 6629).

HON. W. A. WHITE, Judge.

APPEAL from circuit court of Jackson county, HON. W. A. WHITE, Judge.

Action of mandamus brought in the name of the state, on the relation of Mrs. J. R. Baria, against W. M. Alexander, county superintendent of education, to compel respondent to execute a contract with relator as an assistant teacher. From a judgment for respondent, relator appeals. Reversed and rendered.

Reversed.

Bullard & Bullard, of Hattiesburg, for appellant.

The duty devolves on the county superintendent to employ teachers selected by the local trustees and to enter into contract with them and to pay them for their services and this power is not discretionary.

Sec. 73, ch. 159, Code 1930; State ex rel. Cowan, Dist. Atty. v. Morgan, 141 Miss. 585; Lincoln County v. Green, 111 Miss. 35; Brown v. Owen, County Superintendent of Education, 75 Miss. 319.

Two members of board of trustees of a consolidated school district cannot go to the county superintendent's office and sign a paper and call such action of the board, as they were only acting in their individual capacity.

H. P. Heidelberg, of Pascagoula, for appellees.

A majority of the trustees of a consolidated school district have the power and authority to reassign teachers after their election to different grades or to different schools to be taught in the same school district other than the grade or the schools to which they were originally assigned, especially before such teachers have been contracted with.

The county superintendent of education cannot be mandamused to contract with a teacher who has been duly elected by the trustees of a school district to teach at a school in the district where such teacher may have been elected, when between the date of such election by the trustees of the teacher and the date that such teacher applies for a contract to the county superintendent, the school in which such teacher has been selected by the trustees of the district or the place or grade to which such teacher may have been elected has, by operation of law, been abolished.

Argued orally by W. B. Bullard, for appellant, and by H. P. Heidelberg, for appellee.

OPINION

Anderson, J.

This is an action of mandamus brought in the circuit court of Jackson county, in the name of the state, on the relation of appellant, Mrs. J. R. Baria, a public school teacher, praying that a writ of mandamus issue, requiring the appellee, W. M. Alexander, county superintendent of Jackson county, to execute a contract with the relator as an assistant teacher in the public school at Pecan, in Jackson county, for the scholastic year 1930-31, she having been elected by the trustees of that school as assistant teacher therein for the said term. There was a trial on the petition, appellee's answer thereto, and evidence, written and oral, resulting in a judgment in appellee's favor. From that judgment appellant prosecutes this appeal.

The petition for the writ of mandamus alleged that the relator was a duly qualified first grade teacher of the public schools of Jackson county, of several years' experience that appellee was county superintendent of education in Jackson county; that the Pecan school, in that county, was one of the three schools composing the Orange Lake consolidated school district; that the district had legally elected three trustees, who were acting in that capacity; that the Orange Lake consolidated school district had not been able to erect a central school building for the district; that the three schools composing the territory of the consolidated district were, as provided by law, being taught in the separate rural school districts comprising the territory of the consolidated school district; that the trustees of the consolidated school on the 12th of June, 1930, met as provided by law, and elected appellant assistant teacher of the Pecan school for the scholastic term of 1930-31, and at once certified that fact to appellee; that in due time appellant applied to appellee for the execution of the formal contract evidencing such employment; that appellee thereupon refused to enter into the contract with appellant; and that appellant had no other adequate remedy at law except a writ of mandamus commanding appellee to enter into the...