County School Trustees of Lubbock County v. Harral County Line Independent School Dist.

95 S.W.2d 204, 1936 Tex. App. LEXIS 645
Court of Appeals of Texas·Decided June 1, 1936·No. No. 4615·Published·Cited by 8 cases

Opinion

MARTIN, Justice.

The appellees sought and obtained a temporary injunction against the board of county school trustees of Lubbock county and the Shallowater rural high school district as bodies corporate, and against their respective governing bodies, both in their official and individual capacities, restraining each and all of them in substance from annexing the Harral County Line independent school district to the said Shallo-water rural high school district, and from interfering with the management, control, and operation of said Harral County Line independent school district.

The substance of the essential facts are: In July, 1916, two common school districts lying adjacent to each other and the common boundary line between Hale and Lubbock counties, the one in Hale and the oth[205] er in Lubbock county, were consolidated by order of the county school trustees of the two counties aforesaid. It was designated as Harral County Line school district, and supervision of same was given the county school trustees of Lubbock county. Thereafter, in 1925, the Legislature created from this territory, with the exception of a few sections, the Harral County Line independent school district. Thereafter, the county school trustees of Lubbock county grouped two districts lying in Lubbock county into the Shallo-water rural high school district, and then attempted to annex the said Harral County Line independent school district thereto, or otherwise expressed, attempted to group the two into one. This suit followed, and thq_ facts from this point on are found and set out by the trial court which we now copy:

“That an election was to be called on the 15th day of August, 1935, by the County School Trustees of Lubbock County, Texas, calling an election to be held within the Shallowater Rural High School District and the Harral County Line Independent School District, which election was called over the active and open protest of the School Board and the citizens of Harral County Line Independent School District.

“That said election was called without the written or verbal consent of the County School Trustees of Hale County, Texas, and that .the proposed rural High School District contained an area of over one hundred square miles and that some twenty sections of land in the proposed rural high school district and in the Har-ral County Line Independent School District lies and is situated in Hale County, Texas.

“That the school board and the citizens of said Harral County Line Independent School District verbally protested said election after the same was called, and upon said protest being ignored and refused filed this suit in this court on the 3rd day of September, 1935, four days prior to the date said election was to be held, and the Board of Trustees of Hale County, Texas, joined by 114 resident citizens of Harral County Line Independent School District immediately intervened in said suit and adopted the plaintiff’s pleading,- protested against said election and grouping and asked the same relief that the. plaintiffs prayed for, and a hearing was had on said petition and prayer for a restraining order on the 5th day of September, 1935, and said cause was passed until after the election was had as called on this 7th day of September, 1935, and at which election the votes cast ‘for grouping’ in the whole proposed district were 114 ‘for-grouping’ and 45 ‘against grouping’ and that the vote in the Harral County Line Independent School District was 16 ‘for grouping’ and 36 ‘against grouping’ and that on the night of September 7th, 1935, the County School Trustees of Lubbock County met and canvassed the returns of said election, certified the results for grouping said schools and on the same night appointed trustees and forthwith transmitted this information to the Shallo-water Rural High School District Trustees, then in session, and thereupon on the same night at 11 P. M. the newly appointed trustees of the purported newly created Shallowater Rural High School District took the oath of office and forthwith started to act, employed R. L. Hooten as superintendent and on Sunday September 8th, 1935, the said R. L. Hooten appeared in person at the Harral County Line Independent School District building and issued orders for the superintendent of the aforesaid Harral Independent School District to report for duty at the Shallowater. building on Monday morning, September 9th, 1935, and directed that the eighth and ninth grades of said Harral Independent School District attend school at Shallowa-ter and attempted to assume custody and control of said Harral school.”

Because the said trustees were acting under authority of article 2922c, R.S.1925, and failed to comply with article 2922d, re-. quiring the written consent of the county trustees of Hale county to its aforesaid action, the trial court held void its orders respecting same, and issued the injunction as prayed for.

It is our opinion that a correct judgment was entered.

We are not able to agree with appellants’ contention that the consent of the Hale county board of trustees was not necessary to the creation of a valid county line rural high school district.

Originally there existed no constitutional authority for the creation of a county line school district. Parks et al. v. West et al., 102 Tex. 11, 111 S.W. 726.

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County School Trustees of Lubbock County v. Harral County Line Independent School Dist., 95 S.W.2d 204, 1936 Tex. App. LEXIS 645 (Tex. Ct. App. 1936).

95 S.W.2d 204 (County School Trustees of Lubbock County v. Harral County Line Independent School Dist.) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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