Wichita Common School Dist. v. Dickens Ind. Sch. Dist.

• Decision Date: 13 October 1947
• Docket Number: No. 5822.,5822.
• Citation: 206 S.W.2d 885
• Parties: WICHITA COMMON SCHOOL DIST. NO. II et al. v. DICKENS INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DIST. OF DICKENS COUNTY et al.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

Page 885

206 S.W.2d 885

WICHITA COMMON SCHOOL DIST. NO. II et al. v. DICKENS INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DIST. OF DICKENS COUNTY et al.

No. 5822.

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas. Amarillo.

October 13, 1947.

Rehearing Denied November 17, 1947.

Appeal from District Court, Dickens County; Alton B. Chapman, Judge.

Suit by the Dickens Independent School District of Dickens County against the Wichita Common School District No. 11, the Patton Springs Consolidated Common School District No. 22, and others, for a declaratory judgment as to the validity of an election to determine whether defendant districts should be consolidated. From a judgment declaring the election void and declaring the grouping of the Wichita Common School District with plaintiff district into a rural high school district, in accordance with the majority vote in another election, valid, defendant districts appeal.

Reversed and rendered.

Crenshaw, Dupree, Milam & Crenshaw, of Lubbock, for appellants.

Lindsey, Smith & Brock, of Lubbock, and E. H. Boedeker, of Dickens, for appellees.

STOKES, Justice.

This suit was instituted by the appellee, Dickens Independent School District of Dickens County, against the appellees, the County Board of School Trustees, the Commissioner's Court of Dickens County, and the appellants, Patton Springs Consolidated Common School District No. 22 and Wichita Common School District No. 11 of Dickens County. The purpose of the suit was to obtain a declaratory judgment as to the validity of an election held in the Wichita and Patton Springs Common School Districts to determine whether or not the districts should be consolidated under the provisions of Article 2806, Vernon's Annotated Civil Statutes.

The record shows that, under an order entered by the county judge and the provisions of Art. 2806, elections were held in the Wichita and Patton Springs districts on the 22nd of March, 1947, and that a majority of the qualified electors in each district voted in favor of consolidating the two districts. By authority of an order entered by the County Board of School Trustees of Dickens County on the 28th of February, 1947, an election was held in the Wichita Common School District and the Dickens Independent School District to determine whether or not those two districts should be grouped and formed into a rural high school district, and a majority of the qualified electors in those two districts voted in favor of the proposition to group them under the provisions of Articles 2922a and 2922c.

The case was submitted to the court without the intervention of a jury and resulted in a judgment declaring the election called by the County Judge of Dickens County to determine the question of consolidation of the Wichita and Patton Springs districts to be void and of no effect, and decreeing as valid the grouping of the Wichita Common School District with the Dickens Independent School District in accordance with the majority vote in the election of March 29, 1947, authorized by the order of the County Board of School Trustees of Dickens County. The Wichita and Patton Springs Common School Districts duly excepted, gave notice of appeal and have perfected their appeal to this court.

The case is presented here upon a single assignment of error in which appellants contend the court erred in holding the order of the county judge ordering the election for the consolidation of the Wichita Common School District No. 11 and the Patton Springs Consolidated Common School District No. 22 to be void because, they say, the order of the county judge calling the election and the proceedings observed in accomplishing it had precedence in jurisdiction over the action of the County Board of School Trustees of Dickens County, and the election upon consolidation of March 22nd was therefore valid.

The assignment of error and contentions of the parties resolve the entire controversy into the question of jurisdiction, appellants contending that jurisdiction to institute and conduct the election upon the question of consolidating the two common school districts was acquired on February 27, 1947, when a petition was presented to the county judge by twenty legally qualified voters in each district requesting that an election be called in the two districts to determine whether or not they should be consolidated; while appellees contend that no jurisdiction to call the election attached until the county judge entered an order calling the same which was the afternoon of February 28, 1947. On the morning of February 28, the County Board of School Trustees of Dickens County adopted a resolution calling the election to determine the question of grouping the Wichita district with the Dickens Independent district and their contention is that the resolution, having been adopted prior to the time the county judge entered his order in the afternoon of the same day, the jurisdiction of the county board had already attached when the county judge's order was entered.

The record shows that, about noon on February 27, 1947, a petition signed by more than twenty qualified electors of each the Wichita district and the Patton Springs district was presented to the County Judge of Dickens County in which he was requested to issue the necessary order for an election to be held in the two districts for the purpose of determining whether or not the two common school districts should be consolidated for school purposes. The county judge accepted the petition and immediately instituted an investigation to determine whether or not it complied with the law and the signers were legally qualified voters. He did not complete the investigation until the next day and about three o'clock that afternoon, when he became satisfied the petition met the requirements of the law, he entered an order calling the election in the two districts for March 22, 1947. Shortly before noon on February 28, 1947, the county board of school trustees convened in a called session and entered an order calling an election for March 29, 1947, in the Wichita Common School...