State v. Haid

• Decision Date: 05 September 1931
• Docket Number: No. 30634.,30634.
• Citation: 41 S.W.2d 806
• Parties: STATE ex rel. CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL DIST. NO. 2 OF PIKE COUNTY v. HAID, Judge, et al.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

41 S.W.2d 806

STATE ex rel. CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL DIST. NO. 2 OF PIKE COUNTY v. HAID, Judge, et al.

No. 30634.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 1.

September 5, 1931.

Certiorari by the State of Missouri, at the relation of the Consolidated School District No. 2 of Pike County, against the Honorable George F. Haid, Judge of the St. Louis Court of Appeals, and others, to quash relator's opinion in case of Consolidated School District No. 2 of Pike County v. Lucy M. Cooper, Executrix, and Others, 28 S.W.(2d) 384.

Writ of certiorari quashed.

A. J. Murphy, Jr., and May & May, all of Louisiana, Mo., for relator.

Frank J. Duvall, of Clarksville, and Hostetter & Haley, of Bowling Green, for respondents.

HYDE, C.

This is an original proceeding in certiorari. The relator seeks to have the recent opinion of the St. Louis Court of Appeals, in the case of Consolidated School District No. 2 of Pike County v. Lucy M. Cooper, Executrix, et al., 28 S.W.(2d) 384, 385, quashed, on the ground that it is in conflict with former decisions of this court. The facts of the case are set out in the opinion of the Court of Appeals as follows:

"This is an action brought by Consolidated School District No. 2 of Pike county, Mo., against Lucy M. Cooper, executrix of the estate of T. A. Cooper, deceased, and Consolidated School District No. 4 of Pike county, Mo., to recover the sum of $6,460.28, with interest, which money, in January, 1925, was in the custody of T. A. Cooper, treasurer of Pike county, to the credit of plaintiff district, and by him, as plaintiff contends, wrongfully paid out to Consolidated District No. 4. * * *

"Plaintiff district was organized in 1914, and defendant district two years later, the two districts being contiguous, and having functioned as consolidated school districts from the time of their organization up to and including the year 1924. Prior to the annual school election of that year, a move was instituted by certain interested parties whereby, under the guise of a change of boundary lines, it was proposed that Consolidated District No. 4 should annex and take over the whole of the territory of Consolidated District No. 2. In due course the proposition was put to a vote, defendant district voting in favor of the change, and plaintiff district against it. The matter was thereupon referred by appeal to the county superintendent of schools, who, in accordance with the provisions of section 11201, Rev. St. 1919, caused a board of arbitration to be assembled, which, on April 24, 1924, sustained the contention of defendant district, and approved the so-called change in the boundary lines of the two districts.

"Thereupon defendant district, together with certain citizens and taxpayers, sued out a writ of certiorari from the circuit court of Pike county, to try out the question of the legality of the change of boundary lines of the two districts in the manner and form attempted. A trial was had, and on July 25, 1924, the circuit court entered its judgment quashing the writ, from which judgment an appeal was perfected to the Supreme Court. * * * The Supreme Court found sua sponte that it had no jurisdiction, however, and ordered the case to be transferred here (State ex rel. v. Ingram, 317 Mo. 1141, 298 S. W. 37); and on February 7, 1928, we entered our judgment, reversing the judgment of the circuit court. * * * State ex rel. v. Ingram (Mo. App.) 2 S.W.(2d) 113.

"After the decision of the board of arbitration, three of the six directors of plaintiff district refused to continue longer as such, and became directors of Consolidated District No. 4. The remaining three directors, who were opposed to the merger, and were desirous that their district should retain its identity, being without a quorum to transact business, petitioned the county superintendent of schools to fill the vacancies existing on the board. The county superintendent thereupon sought advice from the state superintendent relative to what action should be taken, and the latter advised her that Consolidated School District No. 2 no longer existed, and that she therefore had no authority to appoint any directors upon its board. Upon her consequent refusal, a mandamus suit was brought on July 11, 1924, to compel her to make the appointments, which suit was permitted to await our decision in the appeal from the judgment in the certiorari proceeding. Our mandate reached the circuit court on April 30, 1928, following which the county superintendent promptly made the appointments as the three directors holding over had requested.

"In 1925, T. A. Cooper, the county treasurer, had in his hands to the credit of plaintiff district the sum of $6,460.28, which had been derived from current and back taxes assessed in 1923 and prior years against property in plaintiff district. Absent a valid merger, the money concededly belonged to Consolidated District No. 2. Both districts were claiming the money, however, and before any payments were made, Cooper sought the advice of a disinterested attorney, as well as of the county superintendent, both of whom advised him to pay the money over to defendant district, the attorney relying upon his individual investigation as to the legality of the merger, and the county superintendent upon the advice received from the state superintendent. After the taking of an indemnifying bond, payments were made to defendant district at the times and in the amounts heretofore stated; and it is to recover such payments that the present action was brought. * * *

"It appears from plaintiff's own case that immediately upon the filing of the report of the board of arbitration, holding that the merger was valid and complete, defendant district took over the whole of the territory of plaintiff district, and in the fall of 1924 opened up the schools in both districts, paying all operating expenses out of its own funds on hand until in the following year when the payments in question were made. In fact, this course of conduct was followed throughout the four school years that the merger was supposed to be in effect, the buildings being put in a state of repair, and the children of high school age living in the territory of plaintiff district being permitted to attend the four-year accredited high school maintained by defendant district in its original territory. The two payments in question, as well as all subsequent moneys received, which totaled somewhat less than the sum of $20,464.78 shown by the record to have been extended on the tax books in the years 1925, 1926, and 1927 to the credit of defendant district on personal and real property located in the territory of plaintiff district, were placed in defendant district's general school fund and paid out for legitimate school purposes, though the exact amount expended cannot be accurately determined. * * * Defendant district maintained the schools for a longer period than that for which it received taxes, and * * * there is no hint in the record of any unlawful dealings on the part of any one concerned, or any pretense that the schools in the territory of plaintiff district were not maintained in the most efficient manner possible with the funds at the district's disposal. * * *

"Plaintiff district had its money on hand purely for school purposes, and it was expended for school purposes. It was commingled with funds of defendant district so that it is impossible to determine what particular funds were spent for the upkeep of any particular school, but yet it was legitimately spent, and the pupils in the territory of plaintiff district would seem to have enjoyed better school facilities during the four years of the merger than had been their lot prior thereto."

The circuit court's judgment was in favor of defendant Cooper and against defendant district No. 4 for $6,838.58. Both school districts appealed. The Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment in favor of the Cooper estate and reversed it against district No. 4, holding that the demurrers to the evidence, of both defendants, should have been sustained. The Court of Appeals based its decision upon the doctrine of equitable estoppel holding that because district No. 4 for four school years paid for the operation of the schools of district No. 2, repaired its buildings, and permitted its children to attend high school without paying tuition; that because district No. 2 and its inhabitants accepted these benefits (which were better facilities than formerly enjoyed); that because its taxpayers paid their school taxes to district No. 4, extended on the tax books against their property in district No. 2, for the purpose of providing funds to operate the schools; and because of the other facts mentioned in its opinion—that it would be "most inequitable" to allow that district to recover the school funds sued for and leave district No. 4 "the burden of bearing such expense as was otherwise payable out of such funds." It is apparent from the above-italicized portions of the opinion that the Court of Appeals found as a fact that the funds received by district No. 4, or substantially the amount thereof, were expended for the purposes for which they were raised—to maintain schools in the territory of district No. 2. In reviewing its decision we are bound by its conclusions as to the facts. State ex rel. Koenen v. Daues (Mo. Sup.) 288 S. W. 14.

Relator bases its claim of conflict upon no one case of similar facts, but calls our attention to principles upon which the doctrine of equitable estoppel has been said to rest in many former decisions of this court. Its contentions why equitable estoppel should not apply to this case may be summarized as follows:

That public money was illegally disbursed and received and can be recovered back regardless of any subsequent approval or acquiescence.

That there is no equitable estoppel here because both parties had equal knowledge and equal means of knowledge of the facts; because nothing was...