The St. Joseph & Grand Island Railway Company v. School District No. 2

• Decision Date: 07 July 1923
• Docket Number: 24,501
• Citation: 217 P. 296,114 Kan. 67
• Court: Kansas Supreme Court
• Parties: THE ST. JOSEPH & GRAND ISLAND RAILWAY COMPANY, Appellant, v. SCHOOL DISTRICT No. 2, DONIPHAN COUNTY, Appellee

217 P. 296

114 Kan. 67

THE ST. JOSEPH & GRAND ISLAND RAILWAY COMPANY, Appellant, v. SCHOOL DISTRICT No. 2, DONIPHAN COUNTY, Appellee

No. 24,501

Supreme Court of Kansas

July 7, 1923

Decided July, 1923.

Appeal from Doniphan district court; WILLIAM I. STUART, judge.

Judgment affirmed.

SYLLABUS

SYLLABUS BY THE COURT.

1. QUO WARRANTO--State Only May Challenge Existence or Boundaries of School District. The rule that no one but the state can challenge the existence of a governmental corporation or quasi-corporation is applied in an action brought by a railway company attacking the validity of a change of boundaries of a school district so as to take in a part of an interstate bridge owned by it, although no other taxable property was thereby brought into the district.

2. SAME--Portion of Railroad Bridge May Be Included in Boundaries of School District. In the situation stated in the foregoing paragraph it is not a good ground of objection to the change of boundary that the bridge is not capable of affording a residence for pupils.

J. J Baker, of Troy, Robert A. Brown, and Richard L. Douglas, both of St. Joseph, Mo., for the appellant.

C. W. Reeder, of Troy, for the appellee.

OPINION

MASON, J.:

In July, 1921, the county superintendent of public instruction made an order undertaking to change the boundary of a school district of Doniphan county bordering upon the Missouri river so that it should include that portion of the St. Joseph & Grand Island Railway bridge across the river which is on the Kansas side of the state line. The railway company brought this action in the nature of quo warranto asking a judgment declaring the attempted extension a nullity and ousting the school district from the exercise of jurisdiction over the territory undertaken to be added. A demurrer to the petition was sustained, and the plaintiff appeals.

1. According to the defendant's brief the bridge was treated as being within the district, school taxes being levied and paid on that basis, from the time it was organized, in 1870, until 1921, or shortly before, when the state tax commission held that because the district was described as containing certain sections and fractional sections it extended only to the Kansas bank of the river, and included no part of the bridge. This is not in the record and cannot affect the disposition of the case, although it may serve to explain how the situation presented came about. The order undertaking to extent the territory of the district made the middle of the main channel of the river its eastern boundary, thus taking in the Kansas portion of the bridge in question but no other property save the bed of the stream.

The plaintiff claims the right to maintain the action,...