Way v. Fox

• Decision Date: 17 October 1899
• Citation: 80 N.W. 405,109 Iowa 340
• Parties: WAY ET AL. v. FOX ET AL. (TWO CASES).
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

109 Iowa 340

80 N.W. 405

WAY ET AL.

v.FOX ET AL. (TWO CASES).

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Oct. 17, 1899.

Appeal from district court, Hancock county; J. F. Clyde, Judge.

These two cases involve the same question. The first is a certiorari proceeding to test the legality of the proceedings of the defendants sitting as a board of supervisors on changing the site of the county buildings of Hancock county. The second is an injunction suit to restrain the defendants from removing the county seat and records of said county from what was theretofore known as the village of Concord to the town of Garner. The trial court quashed the writ issued in the first case, and sustained a demurrer to the petition in the second, and plaintiffs appeal. Annulled in first case. Annulled and reversed in second.Cliggitt & Rule and Bradford & Aldridge, for appellants.

Carr & Parker, J. E. Wichman, and A. C. Ripley, for appellees.

DEEMER, J.

About 30 years ago the county seat or seat of justice of Hancock. county was located on a block of ground known as the “Court-House Square” block, situated on the S. E. 1/4 of the S. W. 1/4 of section 31, township 96, range 23 W., of the fifth P. M.; the said 40 acres being known as the “Town Plat of Concord.” A small unincorporated village grew up on this town plat, and ever since the location of the county seat a court house and other county buildings have been maintained upon the court-house square or block. During the whole of the said 30 years the courts have been held at this court house, and all the official business of the county has been transacted at the seat of justice so established. In February, 1898, the citizens of the incorporated town of Britt, also located in said county, attempted to procure a relocation of the county seat at their town. While these citizens were circulating their petiton, the inhabitants of the town of Garner, which is also a municipality duly incorporated and located in Hancock county, but a short distance from the village of Concord, began proceedings to annex that part of the village of Concord to their town. An election was held, and the said territory, with all that intervened, was duly annexed to the town of Garner. Between the original limits of the town of Garner and the plat of the village of Concord is a large amount of land, used wholly for agricultural purposes, which has not been platted, and which the petitions allege was in no way needed for municipal purposes, nor for the prospective future growth and development of the town of Garner. It is further alleged that these annexation proceedings were for the sole purpose of relocating the county seat at Garner. After the annexation proceedings were concluded, certain citizens of the town of Garner filed with the board of supervisors of the county a proposition offering the county the sum of $30,000, to be expended in purchasing a site and erecting a court house in the incorporated town of Garner, as it existed before the annexation proceedings were had. Shortly thereafter the petition for removal to the town of Britt was presented to the board of supervisors, and found insufficient. After this finding was made, the board of supervisors accepted the proposition made by the citizens of Garner, and decided to erect a court house with the money procured for that purpose, and to locate the same upon what is known as “Block 12,” in Talman's addition to the town of Garner. This block 12 is not within the limits of the village or town plat of Concord, but it is about one mile north of the same, and within the territory of the incorporated town of Garner, as it existed prior to the annexation proceedings. The county auditor was authorized to expend $4,000 for the site, and a committee was appointed to procure plans and specifications for the new court house. A post office has been maintained by the government at the village of Concord during nearly all of the 30 years heretofore mentioned. It is alleged in the injunction proceedings that, unless restrained, the defendants will remove the county seat and all the records of the county to the site so purchased; that they will build a court house at the new site, and thus effectually relocate the county seat.

These facts are not in dispute, and the questions presented for our solution are: Have the defendants, as the board of supervisors of Hancock county, exceeded their jurisdiction, or otherwise acted illegally, and shall they be enjoined from relocating the county seat at a point within the town limits of Garner, as they existed before the annexation proceedings were begun?

Some of the questions suggested by these records are so well settled as to be beyond the range of controversy. First, there is no doubt that the town of Garner had the right, by proper proceedings, to annex adjacent and outlying territory, and in so doing to include the village of Concord within its limits; second, the board of supervisors had no right to relocate the county seat without following the express provisions of the statute as found in Code, §§ 394-409, inclusive; third, the board had no right to purchase real estate for county purposes when the expense exceeded $2,000, nor to order the erection of a court house when the probable cost would exceed...