State ex rel. Core v. Green

• Decision Date: 17 October 1953
• Docket Number: No. 33678,33678
• Citation: 115 N.E.2d 157,51 O.O. 442,160 Ohio St. 175
• Parties: , 51 O.O. 442 STATE ex rel. CORE v. GREEN et al.
• Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Page 175

160 Ohio St. 175

115 N.E.2d 157, 51 O.O. 442

STATE ex rel. CORE v. GREEN et al.

No. 33678.

Supreme Court of Ohio.

Oct. 17, 1953.

Syllabus by the Court.

1. By Sections 1, 2, and 3 of Article VI of the Ohio Constitution, the General Assembly is given broad powers to provide a thorough and efficient system of common schools by taxation and for the organization, administration, and control thereof.

2. The General Assembly has the power to provide for the creation of school districts, for changes and modifications thereof, and for the methods by which changes and modifications may be accomplished, and, where it has provided methods by which changes in school districts may be made, no citizen has a vested or contractual right to the continuation of such methods.

3. Where the General Assembly has provided methods by which changes or modifications of school districts may be accomplished, such provisions constitute remedial legislation and ordinarily may be abolished or modified without impinging upon any constitutional rights.

4. Section 4831-15, General Code, Section 3311.25, Revised Code, before its repeal was a legislative enactment of a remedial nature, and Amended House Bill No. 713, passed July 1, 1953, which repealed it and provided that all rights, elections, actions, and proceedings pending under it are null and void, did not violate any provisions of either the Ohio or United States Constitution.

This is an action in mandamus instituted in this court by relator, Frank L. Core, as a duly qualified resident elector of that portion of the city of Fairview Park which is in the school district of the city of Rocky River, against respondents, Ben C. Green, Alexander L. DeMaioribus, Dan W. Duffy, and Daniel H. Wasserman, the duly appointed, qualified and acting members of the Board of Elections of Cuyahoga County, and Ray C. Miller, clerk of such board.

In his petition which was filed July 31, 1953, relator alleges the following:

At all times mentioned in such petition there was in force a statute of Ohio Known as Section 4831-15, General Code, providing that the qualified electors residing within a portion of a municipality, which is part of a school district of another municipality, may petition the board of elections to submit to the qualified electors of the territory affected the proposal to transfer such portion of a territory which is in another municipality to the municipality of residence, so as to make the lines of such school district coincide with the corporate lines of the municipality of residence.

There are situated in Cuyahoga county the city of Fairview Park and the city of Rocky River which are adjacent to each other, and a portion of Fairview Park wherein relator resides has for some years been a portion of the school district which embraces all of Rocky River as well as the aforementioned porton of Fairview Park.

Relator, together with more than 10 per cont of the qualified electors in that portion of Fairview Park in the school district of Rocky River, signed a petition proposing to transfer such territory to the school district of Fairview Park so as to make the lines of such district coincide with the corporate lines of Fairview Park in accordance with Section 4831-15, General Code.

Such signed petition was filed with respondents on February 5, 1953, asking for a special election to be held at the primary election on May 5, 1953, or at the first election thereafter, and respondents duly accepted such petition with the statement that the question would be submitted at the general election on November 3, 1953.

On July 30, 1953, relator was advised by respondents that the question of the transfer of the territory would not appear on the ballot at the November 3, 1953, election.

Relator prays that a writ of mandamus issue to the respondents commanding them to prepare for and conduct an election at the general election on November 3, 1953, on the question of transferring that portion of Fairview Park which is part of the school district of Rocky River to the school district of Fairview Park so as to make the lines of such school district coincide with the corporate lines of Fairview Park.

Answers were filed by the Board of Education of the Rocky River City School District, which had obtained leave to become a new party respondent herein, the Board of Elections of Cuyahoga County, and the clerk thereof. In the answers the allegations of the petition are admitted generally and, as a defense, it is alleged that the General Assembly enacted Amended House Bill No. 713 which was signed and approved by the Governer on July 17, 1953, and which read as follows:

'To repeal Section 3311.25 of the Revised Code relative to the transfer of school territory.

'Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Ohio:

'Section 1. That Section 3311.25 of the Revised Code [Section 4831-15, General Code] is hereby repealed, and all rights, elections, actions and proceedings now pending thereunder are hereby null and void.'

Respondents allege that on and after October 15, 1953, and on election day, November 3, 1953, there will be no authority in law to hold the election on the proposal set forth in relator's petition or to submit the issue to the qualified electors within that portion of Fairview Park referred to in relator's petition, and that by reason thereof it is respondents' intention not to present such question at such election.

Relator filed a demurrer to the answers, on the ground that Amended House Bill No. 713 was unconstitutional in that it violated Sections 26 and 28, Article II, of the Constitution of Ohio, Section 10, Article I, and the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Hamilton & Kramer, Joseph R. Hague, Columbus, and Leonard S. Frost, Lakewood, for relator.

Frank T. Cullitan, Pros. Atty., Saul S. Danaceau, Emery C. Smith, Howard M. Metzenbaum, Cleveland, and Shocknessy, Summers & Denton, Columbus, for respondents.

STEWART, Judge.

The Board of Elections of Cuyahoga County bases its refusal to hold an election on November 3, 1953, on the question proposed by the petitioners on the ground that on November 3, 1953, there will be no authority to hold such an election since Amended House Bill No. 713, effective October 15, 1953, not only repealed Section 4831-15, General Code, Section 3311.25, Revised Code, but provided further that all rights, elections, actions, and proceedings pending under Section 3311.25, Revised Code, are null and void.

Relator insists that, since the petition of the Fairview Park electors was filed with the board of elections while Section 4831-45, General Code, Section 3311.25, Revised Code, was in full force and effect, the board of elections has a legal duty to provide for an election on the question presented. Relator bases his contention on the grounds that Amended House Bill No. 713 violated Section 10, Article I of the Constitution of the United States which proscribes the passage by any state of an ex post facto law or one impairing the obligation of contracts; that it violated Section 1, Article XIV, Amendments, Constitution of the United States, which provides that no state shall deprive any person of property without due process of law or deny to any person the equal protection of the laws; that it violated Section 26, Article II of the Constitution of Ohio, which provides that all laws of a general nature shall have a uniform operation throughout the state; and that it violated Section 28, Article II of the Constitution of Ohio, which provides that the General Assembly shall have no power to pass retroactive laws or laws impairing the obligation of contracts.

Relator has filed two informative and scholarly briefs in which a large number of cases are cited supporting the proposition that laws passed in violation of the constitutional provisions above mentioned are void and of no effect, and relator argues that when the residents in Fairview Park filed their petition with the board of elections in accordance with Section 4831-15, General Code, Section 3311.25, Revised Code, there arose a contractual right which belonged to them and which could not be taken away by the repeal of the statute under...