The State ex rel. Carrollton School District v. Gordon

• Decision Date: 17 December 1910
• Parties: THE STATE ex rel. CARROLLTON SCHOOL DISTRICT v. JOHN P. GORDON, State Auditor
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

133 S.W. 44

231 Mo. 547

THE STATE ex rel. CARROLLTON SCHOOL DISTRICT v. JOHN P. GORDON, State Auditor

Supreme Court of Missouri

December 17, 1910

Writ absolute.

Lozier Morris & Atwood for relator.

(1) The case of State ex rel. Memphis v. Gordon, 223 Mo. 1 is decisive of the question that the above proposition is not a double, but is a single one. The Attorney-General and his assistants recognize this and for that reason and that alone ask this court to reverse itself and overrule that decision. While we do not agree with the views of the Attorney-General and his assistants to the effect that the Memphis case abrogates the rule against doubleness in propositions where the facts of each particular case justify its proper application, their brief shows that they believed and knew that under that decision the proposition involved in the case at bar was single and not double, and that under the authority of that decision the bonds in question should have been registered by respondent when presented to him for that purpose, without the necessity of this suit. We insist that neither the respondent nor the Attorney-General has any right to disregard the decisions of this court because they do not approve of the reasoning or the conclusions reached. We most respectfully insist that they have no right in this case to ask that the Memphis case be overruled. The respondent is but an administrative officer of the State and has no right to decline to discharge the duties of his office as defined by the decisions of this court, even though he may think that such decisions are bad law and ill reasoned. Neither has the Attorney-General the right to advise respondent to refuse to register the bonds which are entitled to registration under the authority of the Memphis case because he may think that case bad law and ill reasoned in its premises. Dalton v Poplar Bluff, 173 Mo. 44. (2) In the case at bar, we are not concerned with municipal profligacy, or with the issue of municipal bonds. We are concerned with the issue of school district bonds issued by virtue of the school laws of the State, and it has been the policy of this court, in construing such laws, to adopt a liberal policy in view of the great public purpose which they accomplish. We do not dispute that an act of the Legislature carries with it the presumption of its validity; neither do we deny that an issue of school district bonds must be supported by proof and not by a mere presumption of their validity, but when this proof is furnished, as in the case at bar, such bonds are just as valid in their sphere as an act of the Legislature is in its sphere, and the one should be as liberally dealt with by the courts as the other. Thornburg v. School District, 175 Mo. 23. A proposition adopted by the voters of the school district is the people legislating for themselves. Surely the people, in what they have a right to do for themselves, will not be dealt with less liberally by the courts than the agents who do not act for themselves, but for the people. A school district is not a municipal corporation, and therefore could not be guilty of municipal profligacy. The decision in the Memphis case gave sections 9752 and 9752a a fair reasonable and common sense construction, taking into consideration the subject (the public school system) that was dealt with, and the beneficial public purposes such statutes were designed to accomplish. The Attorney-General attempts to show that under the reasoning in the Memphis case, municipal corporations like Joplin and Bethany could submit a proposition to vote bonds for all the purposes for which such municipalities are authorized by statute to vote bonds, such as water works, electric light plants, sewers, city halls, etc., all at the same time, and as one proposition upon which but one expression of the voters would be taken, and that such a proposition would not be double under the Memphis case. But such is neither the reasoning nor the effect of that case. That case construed sections 9752 and 9752a upon a phase not heretofore decided by this court, and in doing so the court, reasoning from similars to similars, called to its aid the reasoning applied in former decisions of this court in construing section 28, article 4 of the Constitution. That section of the Constitution was designed to remedy the same character of evils as results from submitting two unrelated and incongruous propositions as one to the voters. But under our school laws, schoolhouse sites, school buildings and furnishings, are related matters and all three are necessary and integral parts of a completed whole. To have schools in a distract, it is indispensable to have adequate physical equipment and facilities. It would be useless to have furnishings and no building to put them in, or to have a site and no building thereon, or to have a building and no furnishings. It is an absolute necessity to have a site, building and furnishings in any district. These three things are necessary and integral parts of a completed whole. It cannot be said that sites, buildings and furnishings are independent, unrelated and incongruous matters. (4) School districts are not municipal corporations. They are entirely different from them in scope and purpose. School districts are organized for the sole purpose of education. They have no double purpose. 25 Am. and Eng. Ency. Law (2 Ed.), p. 31; 35 Cyc. 813; 1 Dillon on Mun. Corps., sec. 22; Heller v. Stremmel, 52 Mo. 311; State ex inf. v. Henderson, 145 Mo. 339; State ex rel. v. School Board, 112 Mo. 218; State ex rel. v. Leffingwell, 54 Mo. 475. The school district not being a municipal corporation, the rules of law governing such corporations are not applicable to or controlling upon such districts. The laws regulating municipal corporations should not and do not govern the subdivisions of the State, organized solely for carrying out the educational policy of the State. Lehew v. Brummell, 103 Mo. 550; Roach v. School Board, 77 Mo. 487; State ex rel. v. Tracy, 94 Mo. 221. All the Missouri cases cited in support of the doubleness of the proposition involve municipal corporations. None of them have to do with school districts or the interpretation or construction of the school laws of this State. (5) The separate schools established for the education of children of African descent are a part of the public school system, and aid in accomplishing the same purpose. State ex rel. v. Jones, 155 Mo. 576.

Elliott W. Major, Attorney-General, Chas. G. Revelle and James T. Blair, Assistant Attorneys-General, for respondent.

(1) The three legally separate propositions were: 1st, to purchase a site for, erect and furnish a new school building; 2nd, to purchase heating plants for the old school buildings; 3rd, to purchase a site, erect and furnish a new building for the negroes. Under our law these propositions should have been separately submitted. Since they were not so submitted, but submitted in solido, the Auditor's refusal to register the bonds issued pursuant to such submission was right. (2) Objection that the proposition was double must be raised before the bonds are negotiated. Such objection could not be urged after the bonds had been delivered to the purchasers and their proceeds received by the board. The doctrine of estoppel operates to quiet the purchaser's title, so far as the objection for doubleness in the proposition submitted is concerned, in case the bonds are delivered and the proceeds accepted before such objection is made. Van Hortrup v. Madison City, 68 U.S. 297; Sala v. New Orleans, 21 Fed. Cas. 22; Mercy v. Ohio, 17 Fed. Cas. 65; Huidekoper v. Buchanan County, 12 Fed Cas. 838; Clarke v. Supervisors, 27 Ill. 310. (3) The rule against the submission of double propositions is one of natural right. Unless each proposition which is distinct is submitted without any other combined with it, it is not, in law, submitted at all. McMillan v. County Judges, 3 Ia. 320; Gray v. Mount, 45 Ia. 595; State ex rel. v. Allen, 186 Mo. 674; State ex rel. v. Wilder, 217 Mo. 270; Supervisors v. Railroad, 21 Ill. 374; Constitution of Mo., art. 2, sec. 9; Lewis v. Comrs., 12 Kan. 213. (4) The scope of the rule against submissions uniting different propositions. State ex rel. v. Allen, 178 Mo. 575; State ex rel. v. Allen, 186 Mo. 674; R. S. 1899, sec. 5968; State ex rel. v. Wilder, 200 Mo. 101; State ex rel. v. Allen, 186 Mo. 673; State ex rel. v. Allen, 183 Mo. 291. These cases clearly deny the right of a city to submit as one question propositions to buy or construct an electric light plant and buy or construct a separate waterworks plant. Yet the statute under which the bonds were attempted to be authorized dealt with electric light plants, waterworks and numerous other things. If a submission can combine propositions for issuing bonds to provide money for all municipal purposes, there can be no rule against doubleness in submission in this State. McMillan v. County Judges, 3 Ia. 320; Gray v. Mount, 45 Ia. 591; Supervisors v. Railroad, 21 Ill. 374; Farmers' L. & T. Co. v. Sioux Falls, 131 F. 912; Water Co. v. City, 57 Oh. St. 374; Lewis v. Comrs., 12 Kan. 213; Railroad v. Peterborough, 49 N.H. 294; Brown v. Carl, 111 Ia. 611; Jameson, Const. Conv., Appendix F., pp. 671, 672; State ex rel. v. Powell, 77 Miss. 572; Denver v. Hayes, 28 Colo. 114; Cain v. Smith, 117 Ga. 904; Leavenworth v. Wilson, 69 Kan. 78; Hempstead v. Seymour, 34 Misc. 95; People ex rel. v. County, 22 Ill. 156; Clark v. Board, 27 Ill. 310; Railroad v. County Clerk, 74 Ill. 32; Garringus v. Board, 39 Ind. 73; Bronenburg v. Board, 41 Ind. 504; Finney v. Lamb, 54 Ind. 2. (5) The Memphis case should be overruled. The case of State ex rel. Memphis v. Gordon, 223 Mo. 1, while distinguishable from the case...