State ex rel. Gregory v. School Dist. No. 24

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

12 N.W. 927

13 Neb. 78

THE STATE OF NEBRASKA, EX REL. CHARLES S. GREGORY, v. SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 24 IN ADAMS COUNTY

Supreme Court of Nebraska

June 21, 1882

ORIGINAL application for a mandamus to compel the levy of a tax to pay school district bonds placed on market and sold to plaintiff a bona fide purchaser for value.

WRIT AWARDED.

Harwood & Ames, for relator.

Copps & Tanner, for respondent.

OPINION

LAKE, CH. J.

Two grounds are taken by counsel for the respondent against the allowance of a peremptory writ. The first of these 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 the district officers. This ought to have been attended to at the first meeting, held October 15th, 1872, which was called by the county superintendent for that particular purpose, but for some undisclosed reason was postponed to the 6th 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 secs. 3 and 12 of the general school law then in force. Gen. Statutes, 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 satisfied, and objection now comes too late. As a body politic this school district had its inception in these irregular steps, and has continued an existence then begun until now. Having given to the district its life, the effectiveness of these 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 observe 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." Sec. 16, Gen Statutes, 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 money, its complete organization at the time it assumed to do so...