Yates v. Beasley

• Decision Date: 05 November 1923
• Docket Number: 23530
• Citation: Yates v. Beasley, 133 Miss. 301, 97 So. 676 (Miss. 1923)
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: YATES et al. v. BEASLEY et al

97 So. 676

133 Miss. 301

YATES et al. v. BEASLEY et al

No. 23530

Supreme Court of Mississippi

November 5, 1923

Division A

(Division A.) January 1, 1920

1 ACTION. Moot questions not decided.

Courts will not adjudicate moot questions; it is only real controversies which the courts will decide, not imaginary ones.

2. APPEAL AND ERROR. Questions involved n appeal held moot, and appeal dismissed.

The patrons of a consolidated public school enjoined the county superintendent of education from contracting with a certain person (one of the defendants in the cause) for the scholastic year 1922-23 as a teacher in said school. The injunction was dissolved by the trial court, from which decree an appeal was taken to the Supreme Court, where the cause was argued and submitted after the expiration of said scholastic year 1922-23. Held, the questions involved are moot, and the appeal dismissed.

HON. A J. MCINTYRE, Chancellor.

APPEAL from chancery court of Union county, HON. A. J. MCINTYRE Chancellor.

Bill by T. P. Yates and others against T. A. J. Beasley and others. From a decree for defendants, plaintiffs appeal. Appeal dismissed.

Appeal dismissed.

Charles Lee Crum, for appellants.

This court raises the question whether the issue now involved in this case is moot and for this reason should be affirmed by this court. This was a suit to restrain the appellee from teaching in the public school at Blue Springs, Mississippi, first, because he is adjudged and is of bad moral character; and, second, because he was not otherwise legally qualified to teach for want of license for the scholastic year 1922-1923.

The injunction was rightfully sued out at the time it was authorized and issued. I respectfully refer to my brief of the case on file in this court. If, because of the lapse of time since the issuing of the injunction writ, the question shall have in the judgment of the court, become a moot one, then I have merely to call attention to the fact that the appellant is not responsible for this delay, as he acted promptly in perfecting his appeal and having the record sent up. But if this court should affirm the decree of the court below on the sole ground that the question now involved in the appeal is moot, with no reason assigned in the opinion for so doing, and without going into the merits of the contentions of the parties, and there should thereafter be a suit by appellee on the injunction bond for damages, then, as a matter of defense to such damage suit on the bond, the appellant would be put to the necessity of presenting the entire merits of this whole case just as it is here presented in order to show that the injunction was in fact rightfully sued out; and without further investigation, I am not now able to assert that such a defense in such damage suit would be available as a defense. If, however, the court should hold that the injunction was rightfully sued out and improperly dissolved by the chancellor, but affirm the decree of the lower court solely on the ground that, without the fault of the appellants the question involved had become a moot one, as was clearly done in the opinion of TERRAL, J., in the case of McInnis v. Pace, 78 Miss. 550, 29 So. 835, then the matter of damages would be finally settled for the suing out of the injunction. This is a just course and will most likely avoid a useless and expensive damage suit to follow in this case.

This court has the discretion to tax the costs of this case against the appellee, even if the case is affirmed on account of the issue involved becoming moot, under the authority given in section 675, Hemingway's Code.

Mitchell & Mitchell, for appellee.

As far as appellee is concerned, we do not insist that this appeal be dismissed because the question has become moot, yet candor and frankness compel us to admit that there is no controversy between the parties herein for this court now to decide. There is no other relief sought by the bill except to enjoin appellee from teaching in the Blue Springs consolidated school for the scholastic year of 1922-1923, and as that term of the school has long since expired, it is apparent that there is now no practical matter for the court to pass upon.

In the cases suggested by the court as authority for holding the present question to have become moot, the case of McInnis v. Pace, 78 Miss. 550, 29 So. 835, in which the court passed upon the merits of the matter, also involved a question of damages in addition to the suing out of the injunction, and the court decided the question on its merits so that the lower court might have a guide in the further trial of the cause on the...