County Board of School Trustees v. Leon Independent School District

328 S.W.2d 928, 1959 Tex. App. LEXIS 2176
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedNovember 5, 1959
Docket3704
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 328 S.W.2d 928 (County Board of School Trustees v. Leon Independent School District) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
County Board of School Trustees v. Leon Independent School District, 328 S.W.2d 928, 1959 Tex. App. LEXIS 2176 (Tex. Ct. App. 1959).

Opinions

WILSON, Justice.

This case involves the question of whether concurrence of County Boards of School Trustees in other counties involved in a transfer of territory, affecting independent school districts in those counties, is necessary under the undisputed facts presented.

Leon Independent School District comprises territory formerly in three independent school districts. It contains territory in Leon and Robertson Counties. The land sought to be transferred from this district lies wholly in Leon County.

The County Board of School Trustees of Leon County, upon a sufficient petition under Art. 2742f, Vernon’s Ann.Tex.Civ. Stats., entered an order transferring a portion of the Leon district to the Normangee Independent School District, which lies partly in both Leon and Madison Counties. [929]*929It passed a similar order detaching another portion of the Leon district, annexing this portion to Centerville Independent School District, which is situated wholly in Leon County. No action with reference to these transfers has been taken by the county boards of school trustees of either Robertson or Madison counties.

The Leon Independent School District sought a temporary injunction, which the trial court granted, restraining the Leon County trustees, the county superintendent, and the two receiving districts from taking action under the orders of transfer. The trial court concluded that without concurrence of the Robertson County board the order of transfer to the Centerville district was of no effect; and that without the concurrence of the county boards of Robertson and Madison Counties, the attempted transfer to the Normangee district was ineffective.

Appellants’ counsel have commendably simplified the issue by presenting the sole question: Is it necessary to validity of the orders that the county trustees of Robertson and Madison Counties concur ? Exhaustive and able briefs for the parties and our research indicate the question, under the precise combination of facts here involved, has not been passed upon. We think the trial judge, out of the perplexing obscurities of the school laws of Texas, reached the correct conclusion.

Appellants contend that since Art. 2742f contains no express requirement for approval of transfer by the county trustees of other counties having territory in a county line school,district, such as appellee, their concurrence is not prerequisite.

As to the Normangee order, the question is foreclosed by South Taylor County Independent School Dist. v. Winters, Ind. School Dist., 151 Tex. 330, 249 S.W.2d 1010, 1012. There, as here, all the territory sought to be transferred was within the county of the county board adopting the order of transfer. In that case, as in ours, the receiving district was a county line independent school district situated partly in’ two counties. After holding that the transfer power of county boards as to county line independent districts emanates from Art. 2742f, the Supreme Court declared that until the county board of the county corresponding to Madison County in the instant case acted on the matter “unquestionably the territory remained part of the [original] South Taylor County Independent School District.” The Supreme Court decided that until the county board of the other county in which the receiving district was also located had acted, the transfer order was not final and could be rescinded. It is to be noted that the Court of Civil Appeals in the same case, 245 S.W.2d 526, 528, had held that the transfer order was valid as extending “an invitation to the accepting board, or boards”; but also said, “it is certain that the order of either board alone would not transfer the territory.”

The only distinguishing factor in the two cases is that in the Supreme Court case the independent school district from which the territory was attempted to be detached was located entirely in the county in which the county board acted; whereas in the present case such district lies in two counties. The composition of the district here obviously strengthens the application of the decision.

As to the Centerville order, although the South Taylor case may be said to be -decisive in principle, a possible distinguishing fact is that the Centerville (receiving) district lies entirely in Leon County; while the corresponding district in the Supreme Court case was situated in two counties. We do not regard this factual difference as significant. However, the trial court’s judgment as to Centerville is directly supported by County School Trustees of Runnels County v. State, Tex.Civ.App., 95 S.W.2d 1001, 1003, writ dis. There, as in this case, the independent school district from which territory was ordered detached was in two counties. There also, all the territory ordered detached without concurrence of the other county board, was in the county whose county board acted. As in our case, the reT [930]*930ceiving district lay wholly in the latter county. In this situation, identical to that of Centerville, after pointing out that action of authorities in both counties was requisite to creation of such a district, the Court held:

“In county line school districts * * in the changing of their district boundaries, the school authorities of both counties or all counties affected should act together in such matters * * * and we are clear in the view that Art. 2742f does not permit the county trustees of one county to detach any portion of the territory of the county line school district and attach the same to another district, without the consent and concurrent action of the trustees of each county having territory in the county line district.”

Some of the reasoning in that case is questioned by appellants. Dismissal of application for the writ of error in 1936 may have indicated the Supreme Court was not satisfied the opinion in all respects correctly declared the law; but it also indicated the judgment declaring the order ineffective was correct, and the foregoing holding was the direct and indispensable basis for the judgment. It is sought to distinguish that case on the ground that the county trustees of the county failing to concur had the “administrative control” of the county line district; whereas in the present case the court found Leon County had such control. In the Runnels County case the “administrative control” was by virtue of Art. 2806 which provided that in a Consolidated Independent School District the board of trustees of the independent district having the largest number of scholastics shall serve as the new district board. The consolidated district there had just been created by election under Art. 2806. Reference in the opinion to Art. 2744 (which is held to deal solely with “Common County Line School Districts”, Stephens v. Coffee, Tex.Civ.App., 133 S.W.2d 184, 185); and the suggestion that Art. 2742Í relates where only one county is involved, become unimportant in view’ of the Supreme Court’s holding in the South Taylor case, 249 S.W.2d 1010, 1011, that the transfer power emanates from Art. 2742f.

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County Board of School Trustees v. Leon Independent School District
328 S.W.2d 928 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1959)

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328 S.W.2d 928, 1959 Tex. App. LEXIS 2176, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/county-board-of-school-trustees-v-leon-independent-school-district-texapp-1959.