State ex rel. Ondler v. Rowe
| Decision Date | 13 December 1919 |
| Docket Number | 32581 |
| Citation | 175 N.W. 32,187 Iowa 1116 |
| Parties | STATE OF IOWA, ex rel. M. M. ONDLER, et al., Appellants, v. C. N. ROWE et al., Appellees |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Appeal from Linn District Court.--F. F. DAWLEY, Judge.
THIS is a proceeding in the nature of quo warranto, to test the right of defendants to hold the office of school director of the consolidated independent district of Troy Mills. Judgment was entered dismissing plaintiff's petition. Plaintiff appeals.
Affirmed.
F. L Anderson and R. J. O'Brien, for appellants.
Treichler & Treichler, for appellees.
Early in the year 1915, a movement was begun to organize a consolidated school district, to include territory theretofore constituting two independent districts in Buchanan County, together with a portion of Spring Grove Independent District, and all of three other independent districts in Linn County. Among those districts was one known as Troy Mills, to which further reference will be made. Proceeding under the statute, Section 2794-a, Code Supplement, 1913, as it then stood, a petition was prepared and signed by the requisite number of electors. It was also endorsed by the county superintendent of Linn County, with an approval in the following form:
The record at this point is not entirely clear, but it is inferable therefrom that there was no formidable or serious objection to the consolidation, except in the included part of Spring Grove District, and that the addendum to his approval of the petition was made by the superintendent of Linn County, with a view to placate or avoid the opposition so arising. On the date named by the superintendent, a meeting was held at Troy Mills, which appears to be the most populous of the several districts, and the nucleus of the consolidation. The meeting was attended by many electors of Spring Grove, and the board of directors of Troy Mills, and probably others in interest. After discussion, it seems to have been proposed to solve the difficulty by dropping the designated territory in Spring Grove from the proposed consolidation. This was agreed to, the representatives from Spring Grove expressing their assent in writing. Thereupon, the petition was again presented to the superintendent of Linn County, and he endorsed his approval thereon in writing. It also received the written approval of the superintendent of schools in Buchanan County. As thus completed, the petition was filed with the Troy Mills Board of Directors, together with a plat or map of the proposed consolidated district, including within its boundaries all of the territory originally proposed therefor, except that part in the district of Spring Grove.
The board, having received these papers, proceeded to give notice of an election upon the question so presented. This notice did not mention the Spring Grove territory as being included in the proposed consolidation, and the people of that independent district took no part in the election, nor has that district nor any of its electors taken any part in subsequent litigation attacking the validity of the consolidation. The election was attended generally by the electors of the five independent districts described in the notice, who sustained the project by a substantial majority. In due course thereafter, an election was called and held, to complete the organization of the consolidated district by the election of a board of directors, as by statute provided. At said election, two or more of the persons who appear as relators in this suit were unsuccessful candidates for a place on the board. No attempt was made to test the legality of the organization until in October following. Meantime, it was the effect of the consolidation, if valid, to render void all taxes previously certified, so far as the property within the limits of the consolidated district is concerned, and it had become the duty of the newly elected board to perfect its organization before the first day of July of that year; also, to levy taxes for the general fund and other necessary school purposes before the third Monday in August,--duties which, we must presume, were duly performed. Section 2794-a, Subdiv. b, Code Supplement, 1913. A schoolhouse was secured in Troy Mills, teachers were employed, and arrangements made for the transportation of pupils, as provided by law.
Thereafter, in October of that year, as above suggested, certain persons alleging themselves to be taxpayers in the district brought a suit in equity to have the organization adjudged illegal and void, and to enjoin its directors and officers from assuming to act in such capacity. The litigation thus begun leisurely took its way through the court below, and finally to this court, where, two years later, it was decided that the legality of the organization of a corporation cannot be determined in an equitable action for injunctive relief, and that an action in the nature of quo warranto affords the exclusive remedy. See Nelson v. Consolidated School District, 181 Iowa 424, 164 N.W. 874. When that case had been finally disposed of, as above indicated, and when the consolidated district had been organized and had been exercising the functions of a school corporation for more than two years, the present action was instituted. The trial court found for the defendants, and plaintiffs appeal.
Aside from the alleged defects hereinafter specifically considered, the regularity and propriety of the proceedings culminating in the organization of the consolidated district are in no manner challenged or denied. Reduced to brief terms, the point relied upon is that the petition for the calling of the election, in the form in which it was signed by the electors, described the proposed consolidated district as including, with other territory, the independent district of Spring Grove, or some part thereof; that such was, in fact, the form of the petition filed with the board of directors of the Troy Mills district, but the notices of election departed from that description by leaving out the Spring Grove district, and it was this amended or substituted description which was approved and upheld by the vote for consolidation. In other words, it is contended that, if the board of directors acquired any jurisdiction or right to call an election on the question, it was the question of consolidating the territory originally described in the petition, and that the omission of the Spring Grove territory in the subsequent proceedings renders them absolutely void. Stated still otherwise, it is said that the vote to consolidate the territory not including Spring Grove is utterly nugatory, because there was no petition before the board asking for such an election.
I. Let us first inquire when the jurisdiction of the "board of directors of the school corporation having the largest number of voters" attaches, for the purposes of an election upon the subject of territorial consolidation, as provided in Section 2794-a, Code Supplement, 1913. This is clearly indicated in the language of that section to be when the petition asking such election, approved by the county superintendent, and purporting to be signed by a sufficient number of electors, is presented to that body for its action. Such is not only the natural import of the legislative language, but this court has so interpreted it, on repeated occasions. In School Corporation v. Independent School Dist., 162 Iowa 257, 144 N.W. 20, there was a petition for an election to organize an independent district, and a second petition by voters from contiguous territory to be included therein. The board sustained and acted upon both petitions. It being sought to invalidate the organization on the ground that the second petition was not signed by the required number of voters, and therefore the board acquired no jurisdiction to proceed, we said:
Quite in point, in many respects, is the case of Smith v Blairsburg Ind. School Dist., 179 Iowa 500, 159 N.W. 1027. There, the petition for an election to organize a consolidated district described in detail, according to government survey, a large number of tracts of land, and its prayer was "that all the territory situated within the limits herein described be organized into one consolidated independent district," and that an election be called accordingly. The petition was addressed and presented to the board of the independent district of Blairsburg. That board, acting upon the petition, called an election, and, in its notices of the election, described the territory specifically mentioned in the petition, but added thereto the words, "and embracing the independent school district of Blairsburg in said county." Now the petition did not, in its description of the proposed consolidation, mention the Blairsburg district by name, nor did it describe any of the land or territory within...
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