State ex rel. Gregory v. Sch.-Dist. No. 24, Adams Cnty.

• Decision Date: 21 June 1882
• Citation: 13 Neb. 78,12 N.W. 927
• Parties: STATE EX REL. GREGORY v. SCHOOL-DISTRICT NO. 24, ADAMS COUNTY.
• Court: Nebraska Supreme Court

13 Neb. 78

12 N.W. 927

STATE EX REL. GREGORY

v.SCHOOL-DISTRICT NO. 24, ADAMS COUNTY.

Supreme Court of Nebraska.

Filed June 21, 1882.

Original application for mandamus.

Harwood & Ames and B. T. Smith, for relator.

Copps & Farmer, for respondent.

LAKE, C. J.

Two grounds are taken by counsel for the respondent against allowance of a peremptory writ. The first of them is that when the election was held at which the bonds in question were voted said district had not yet been fully organized and was therefore incapable of authorizing its officers to issue them. It must be conceded that considerable irregularity attended the organization of this district, but there is nothing to show that there was any bad faith on the part of any one connected therewith. The principal irregularity was in the election of district officers. This ought to have been attended to at the first meeting, held October 15, 1872, which was called by the county superintendent for that particular purpose, but, for some undisclosed reason, was postponed to the sixth of November following. This was certainly a plain disregard of the direction of the statute on the subject, as will be seen by reference to sections 3 and 12 of the general school law then in force. Gen. St. 962, 963. But we are of the opinion that this irregularity is now of no consequence. Nobody objected at the time to the course pursued; all seemed to have been then satisfied, and objection now comes too late. As a body politic this school-district had its inception in these irregular steps, and has continuedan existence then begun until now. Having given to the district its life, the effectiveness of those steps ought not now, after the lapse of over nine years, to be called in question. Although the statute points out minutely and clearly the steps to be taken in the orderly formation and organization of school-districts, its framers evidently anticipated that there would be instances of failure to comply with them fully, and therefore provided that “every school-district shall, in all cases, be presumed to have been legally organized when it shall have exercised the franchises and privileges of a school-district for the term of one year.” Section 16, Gen. St. p. 964. This section is exceedingly comprehensive. Its terms are sweeping. It applies, as its language clearly imports, “in all cases” wherein the doings of a district, as such, are called in question, or in any way involved, as well to acts during the first year and from which this presumption arises, as to those performed afterwards. So far, therefore, as concerns the capability of the district to take upon itself the obligation of a borrower of...