Wilson v. Pierce

• Decision Date: 01 December 1938
• Docket Number: No. 10667.,10667.
• Citation: 123 S.W.2d 695
• Parties: WILSON v. PIERCE et al.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

Page 695

123 S.W.2d 695

WILSON v. PIERCE et al.

No. 10667.

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas. Galveston.

December 1, 1938.

Appeal from District Court, Harris County; Ben F. Wilson, Judge.

Action by A. L. Wilson and others against the Trustees of Huffman Common School District No. 30 in Harris County, Tex., to enjoin the district from requiring children of plaintiffs to do sweeping and other chores around their classrooms. From a judgment of dismissal, the named plaintiff appeals.

Affirmed.

Frank J. Campbell, of Houston, for appellant.

Ethan W. Bruce, of Goose Creek, for appellees.

GRAVES, Justice.

As tried out below, this was an action by the sole appellant here—joined by several other parents of children attending that school—to enjoin the appellee school district from requiring his and their children, as incidental to attendance as pupils of such Huffman school, along with all others similarly situated, to do sweeping and other chores around their classrooms, of from three to five minutes time each per week; they acted as school patrons and private individuals only, and sought the restraint against the trustees solely in their official capacity, as constituting the governing body of the school district, organized and functioning pursuant to R.S. Article 2748.

Before so resorting to the court, appellant had unsuccessfully exhausted his remedy for the procurement of the same relief from that local school-board itself, as well as by appeals therefrom to the county superintendent, the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, and the State Board of Education; such appellate school authorities having affirmed the refusal of the appellees to grant him and his coapplicants the order they sought, after extended hearings upon the facts from both sides.

The court below—through Honorable Ben F. Wilson, of the 61st Judicial District —entered the appealed from judgment, and dismissed such suit, in this declaration: "The court having heard the pleadings, and being convinced that said suit was in reality a suit in the interest of the public at large, the said other parties asking to restrain the Huffman Common School District in matters involving the policy of the management and operation of said school, and it appearing to the court that the subject-matter being such that no individual party had more interest than any other individual party who had children in said school, the Court being of the opinion that such suits may be brought by the State only and not by individual citizens, the Court sustained defendants' plea to the jurisdiction of the Court on that ground."

So that, the only question the appeal presents is whether or not the dismissal for want of jurisdiction was correct. This court, aided by able briefs and oral arguments from both sides, concludes that it was; from the brief statement made, as well as the quoted decree of the learned trial Judge, it is apparent that purely private parties, who sustained no other relation toward the school itself, or to each other, or to the general public, than that in common they were patrons thereof with their respective children in attendance upon it as pupils,...