State ex rel. Case v. Searl

• Decision Date: 31 July 1872
• Citation: 50 Mo. 268
• Parties: STATE OF MISSOURI ex rel. ALFRED CASE et al., Plaintiffs in Error, v. M. W. SEARL et al., Defendants in Error.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

50 Mo. 268

STATE OF MISSOURI ex rel. ALFRED CASE et al., Plaintiffs in Error,

v.M. W. SEARL et al., Defendants in Error.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

July Term, 1872.

Error to Laclede Circuit Court.

R. P. Bland and G. W. Bradfield, for plaintiffs in error.

W. J. Wallace, J. P. Nixon and H. H. Harding, for defendants in error.

WAGNER, Judge, delivered the opinion of the court.

This was an information in the nature of a quo warranto filed in the Circuit Court at the instance of the relators, who were school directors for sub-district number 1 of township 34, range 16, in Laclede county. The information charged the defendants with usurping and unlawfully exercising the powers conferred in certain cases by the act of the Legislature, approved March 21, 1870, concerning schools (Wagn. Stat. 1262, § 1), and averred that the defendants were, without authority of law, acting as school directors for the town of Lebanon, the same being a part of said sub-district number 1.

The return of the defendants set up their right to act by virtue of an organization of the town in pursuance of the act before referred to, and alleged that the town of Lebanon and all its additions, at an election held for that purpose, adopted the law; that the defendants were afterwards duly elected as a board of education for said town, and were, by virtue thereof, lawfully exercising said authority. To this return a replication was filed. Upon this state of facts the relators asked the court to declare the law to be that the town had no lawful right or power to organize for school purposes, without including in such organization the whole sub-district. The court refused so to declare the law, and gave judgment for the defendants.

The only question presented in the record for our determination is the one indicated by the instruction, namely: whether any city, town or village can organize for school purposes without including in such organization the whole sub-district to which it previously belonged. The law under which the town acted was adopted in 1870, and is as follows: Any city, town or village, the plat of which has previously been duly filed and recorded in the recorder's office of the county wherein the same is situate, together “with the territory attached, or hereafter to be attached, to said city, town or village, for school purposes, may be organized into and established as a single school district, in the manner and with the powers hereinafter specified.” (Wagn. Stat. 1262, § 1.)...