Willow Hole Independent School Dist. v. Smith
| Decision Date | 15 December 1938 |
| Docket Number | No. 2059.,2059. |
| Citation | 123 S.W.2d 708 |
| Parties | WILLOW HOLE INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DIST. v. SMITH et al. |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
Appeal from District Court, Madison County; Lex Smith, Special Judge.
Suit by the Willow Hole Independent School District against E. H. Smith and others to have an order of the County Board of Trustees declared void. Judgment for defendants, and plaintiff appeals.
Affirmed.
Seale & Seale, of Centerville, for appellant.
Bennett & Bennett, of Normangee, for appellees.
This suit was instituted by Willow Hole Independent School District against the County Board of Trustees of Madison county and the several members thereof and against G. W. Boswell and two others alleged to be holding themselves out as trustees of Oak Grove Common School District of said county, to have declared null and void an order of said County Board of Trustees "ungrouping and disannexing" said Oak Grove Common School District from said Willow Hole Independent School District. Appellant alleged that it was a rural high school district, and as ground for the relief sought, that the petitions for ungrouping were not signed by a majority of the qualified voters of each of the elementary districts constituting such rural high school district, as required by law. Appellees denied the latter allegation.
The case was tried to the court and judgment rendered that appellant take nothing by its suit. The trial court filed findings of fact and conclusions of law. No statement of facts is found in the record.
Opinion.The judgment rendered by the trial court is based in part on a finding that the petitions for ungrouping, upon which the county school trustees acted, were signed by a majority of the qualified voters of the original Willow Hole Independent School District. Appellant assails such finding by appropriate assignments of error. Willow Hole Independent School District was, prior to the entry of said order, a rural high school district, formed by the grouping for high school purposes of three contiguous school districts. Said rural high school district was created originally by grouping Willow Hole Independent School District and Kickapoo Common School District. Early in the year 1936, the county school trustees made an order including Oak Grove Common School District in said group, thereby forming an enlarged rural high school district, which was thereafter, as theretofore, known and designated as Willow Hole Independent School District.
Petitions requesting that said Oak Grove Common School District be "ungrouped or disannexed" from said Willow Hole Independent School District were, on the 21st day of December, 1936, filed with the county school trustees of said county. Each of said petitions contained recitations that the signers thereof were qualified voters residing in said respective districts. The county school trustees, on said last named day and date, considered said petitions and the sufficiency of the same to support the relief sought, concluded that the same were signed by a majority of the qualified voters in each of the districts affected, and thereupon entered an order ungrouping said Oak Grove District from the other districts then constituting said Willow Hole Independent School District. The original order grouping Willow Hole Independent School District and Kickapoo Common School District to form a rural high school district was apparently left undisturbed. The substance of the findings of the trial court on the specific issues raised by appellant's assignments will be recited in connection with the discussion of the law applicable thereto.
Article 2922a, Vernon's Ann.Civ. St., is in part as follows: "Provided that the county school trustees shall have the authority to abolish a rural high school district on a petition signed by a majority of the voters of each elementary district composing the rural high school district and when such district has been abolished the elementary districts shall automatically revert back to their original status * *". While this statute apparently contemplates that an ungrouping shall dissolve and abolish the rural high school district, we have reached the conclusion that it should not be construed to prevent ungrouping by disannexing one of the elementary school districts from a rural high school, especially in such a case as this, where the elementary district seeking to be ungrouped had been added to the rural high school district by a second grouping order made long after the original high school district was formed.
Apparently it is conceded that the petitions for ungrouping contained the signatures of a majority of the qualified voters in the original Kickapoo and Oak Grove school districts. The controverted issue is whether such petitions contained the signatures of a majority of the qualified voters residing in the original Willow Hole...
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