Robbins v. Joint Class A. School Dist. No. 331

244 P.2d 1104, 72 Idaho 500, 1952 Ida. LEXIS 197
CourtIdaho Supreme Court
DecidedMay 26, 1952
Docket7838
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 244 P.2d 1104 (Robbins v. Joint Class A. School Dist. No. 331) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Idaho Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Robbins v. Joint Class A. School Dist. No. 331, 244 P.2d 1104, 72 Idaho 500, 1952 Ida. LEXIS 197 (Idaho 1952).

Opinion

*503 GIVENS, Chief Justice.

Prior to and at the time of the organization of Joint Class A. School District No. 331 of Minidoka County, there was organized and existing wholly within the County and the re-organized District, Rural High School District No. 2, which comprised former Independent School District No. 4, Common School District No. 3, and Common School District No. 19.

After the organization of the Joint District, some ten claimed qualified electors •of the previously organized High School District petitioned the trustees of the Joint District to call an election within such previous area of the Rural High School District to vote on whether such High School should be continued or discontinued, as provided in Section 33-522, I.C., amended by the 1949 Session Laws, Chapter 129, page 229, and the 1951 Session Laws, Chapter 247, page 523.

The trustees refused to call the election; whereupon, ten claimed qualified school electors of the High School District (three the same as petitioners) filed in the District Court a petition for writ of mandate to compel the trustees to call the election. Appellants, the school trustees, demurred to the petition on the grounds the plaintiffs showed no right to demand the calling of an election, no duty rested upon the defendants to call the election, they had no ability to comply with the petition without imperiling the rights of third parties, and that the amendments to Section 33-522,1.C., in 1949 and 1951 are unconstitutional and violative of Article III, Sections 16 and 19, Article VII, Section 5, and Article IX, Section 1, of the Constitution of Idaho.

The court overruled the demurrer, and appellants evidently making no application to plead further, the court immediately made findings of fact, conclusions of law and entered judgment making the mandate permanent. The court granted appellants’ application to stay the writ requiring the trustees to call the election, pending appeal to this Court.

Appellants,' in addition to unconstitutionality, urge costs should not have been awarded against appellants and that the judgment was premature.

*504 Costs were properly awarded, though they should run against appellants as trustees of the School District; in other words, against the District, not against the trustees personally. Section 33-714 (15), I.C.; People ex rel. Thompson v. Cothern, 36 Idaho 340 at page 343, 210 P. 1000; Chastain’s, Inc., v. State Tax Commission, Idaho, 241 P.2d 167 at page 170.

The duty resting on the trustees to determine whether the petitioners were qualified electors and that an attendance unit had been so operated as to come within the provisions of Section 33-522, I.C., was purely ministerial, and if favorably found, it was their duty and they had no discretion but to call the election.

Intervening litigation cannot prevent the operation of the statute and the election must be called by the trustees on ten days’ notice after the judgment herein becomes final. Nothing need be supplied to make the amendments effective and workable; therefore, mandamus was a proper procedure. Blaine County v. Smith, 5 Idaho 255, 48 P. 286; Williams v. Lewis, 6 Idaho 184, 54 P. 619; Idaho, etc., Transp. Co. v. Stephenson, 16 Idaho 418, 101 P. 821; Nampa v. Nampa & Meridian Irr. Dist, 23 Idaho 422, 131 P. 8; People ex rel. Thompson v. Cothern, supra; Girard v. Miller, 55 Idaho 430, 43 P.2d 510; Robinson v. Enking, 58 Idaho 24, 69 P.2d 603; Murtaugh Highway Dist. v. Merritt, 59 Idaho 603, 85 P.2d 685; Maguire v. Whillock, 63 Idaho 630, 124 P.2d 248.

The action for mandamus need not be brought by the same parties who signed the petition for the election. The plaintiffs were alleged to be qualified electors of the former High School Districts and the demurrer so admitted.

The statute, in giving qualified school electors in a previously organized school district the right to petition for an election to decide on its continuance or discontinuance, necessarily gives qualified school electors the right to enforce the statute by appropriate action. Petitioners and plaintiffs, thus, need not be identical. Manning v. Upshaw, 204 Ga. 324, 49 S.E.2d 874.

Appellants did not present nor ask permission to file an answer after the demurrer was overruled, nor does the record indicate they sought in any other way to file an answer, nor do they suggest before us what issues of fact they desired to raise by answer. Addle v. Davenport, 7 Idaho 282, 62 P. 681, merely recognized an answer could be filed in a mandamus proceeding.

Board of Public Works v. Hayden, 13 Colo.App, 36, 56 P. 201, and Flanigan v. Burritt, 41 Nev. 504, 173 P. 352, held in mandamus proceedings that where a demurrer was overruled, it was error not to permit an answer to be filed, if tendered; therefore, they are not in point herein.

If appellants had presented or sought to file an answer raising valid, substantial questions of fact, the learned trial court *505 should, and undoubtedly would, have permitted it to be filed and tried such issues.

The correct, applicable, rule in the situation disclosed by this record is that set forth in Homestake Mining Co. v. Superior Court, 11 Cal.App.2d 488, 54 P.2d 535, to the effect that where no request to file an answer is made and it is not suggested what issues of fact the defendant desires to contest, forthwith entry of judgment on overruling a demurrer is not premature.

Appellants’ only attack upon the title is that it did not mention the length of time for the notice of election, specified as ten days in the body of the Act, and that in the absence thereof a member of the Legislature, or anyone else, would be misled because they naturally would think it was the time provided for in Section 33-403, I.C., namely, 21 days or three weeks. The complete answer to appellants’ contention is, the title does not need to be an index of the contents, but need set forth only the general subject thereof. Prior to the amendments of 1949 and 1951, the trustees of a re-organized district evidently had the power to continue or discontinue any unit theretofore operated. The one subject matter of the two amendments was that the voters of the former district should make such decision. This was clearly reflected in the title and it was not defective in the particular urged by appellants.

“ ‘Every act shall embrace but one subj ect and matters properly connected therewith, which subject shall be expressed in the title; but if any subject shall be embraced in an act which shall not be expressed in the title, such act shall be void only as to so much thereof as shall not be embraced in the title.’ ” State of Idaho v. Pioneer Nurseries Co., 26 Idaho 332 at page 336, 143 P.

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Paulson v. Minidoka County School District No. 331
463 P.2d 935 (Idaho Supreme Court, 1970)
Lang v. Board of Trustees of Joint School Dist. No. 251
455 P.2d 856 (Idaho Supreme Court, 1969)
Wellard v. Marcum
351 P.2d 482 (Idaho Supreme Court, 1960)
State v. Mayer
338 P.2d 270 (Idaho Supreme Court, 1959)
Knight v. Class a School District No. 2
278 P.2d 991 (Idaho Supreme Court, 1955)
Andrus v. Hill
249 P.2d 205 (Idaho Supreme Court, 1952)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
244 P.2d 1104, 72 Idaho 500, 1952 Ida. LEXIS 197, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/robbins-v-joint-class-a-school-dist-no-331-idaho-1952.