Union Sch. Dist v. Sch. Dist

• Decision Date: 08 March 1902
• Docket Number: NO. 20.,20.
• Citation: 52 A. 850,71 N.H. 269
• Parties: UNION SCHOOL DIST v. SCHOOL DIST.
• Court: New Hampshire Supreme Court

52 A. 850

71 N.H. 269

UNION SCHOOL DIST

v. SCHOOL DIST.

NO. 20.

Supreme Court of New Hampshire. Merrimack.

March 8, 1902.

Transferred from superior court; Stone, Judge.

Action by Union School District against School District No. 20 for tuition of children residing with their parents or guardians in defendant district, and attending the high school of plaintiff district. Case transferred to the supreme court from the October term, 1901, of the superior court Case discharged.

There are three school districts in Concord, namely, Union School District, District No. 20, and the Town District. District No. 20 does not maintain a high school, or one of a grade corresponding to the high school in Union School District. The parents and guardians of the children residing in District No. 20 and attending the high school in Union School District notified the school board of the former district of the purpose of the children to attend that school. The defendant district declines to pay tuition for any of the children, claiming that the same should be paid by the city of Concord.

Mitchell & Poster, for plaintiffs.

David F. Dudley, for defendants. Edmund S. Cook, for city of Concord.

BLODGETT, C. J. The sole contention of the defendant district is that the tuitions of the children resident therein who attend the high school of the plaintiff district should be paid by the city of Concord, in which both districts are situate. We are unable to find any tenable basis for this conclusion. So far as appears, and as we take the facts to be, each district has "a special, independent, and complete organization, and officers of its own, having exclusive authority for the superintendence and government of its schools and the administration of all its school affairs," and is a distinct and separate organization and corporation, not merely as to each other, but as to the city of Concord. Sargent v. School Dist, 63 N. H. 528, 530, 533, 534, 2 Atl. 641; Wheeler v. Town of Alton, 68 N. H. 477, 478, 38 Atl. 208.

With these relations and conditions existing, it would not only be obviously unjust to subject the city to the payment of tuition at the plaintiff's high school for children resident in the defendant district, which has authority to establish and maintain a high school of it own (Pub. St c. 89, § 9), but we think the parties fairly come within the meaning of "town" as used in chapter 96, Laws 1901, enacting that "any town not maintaining a high school or school of...