170 Ind. 439 | Ind. | 1908
Action by appellee for a peremptory writ of mandate directed against appellant, requiring said board to authorize the trustee of Harrison township to borrow money to be expended in the construction of a joint schoolhouse, under the provisions of §§6617, 6619-6622 Burns 1908, §§4512, 4513 R. S. 1881, Acts 1901, p. 53, §§1-3.
A petition for a writ was filed in the Miami Circuit Court September 17,1906, and on the same date an alternative writ was issued and served on the advisory board, then composed of Rose, Stitt and Graham. It is alleged in the petition, in substance, that school district No. 1 in Clay township, and school district No. 2 in Harrison township, in Miami county, are adjoining districts, and on March 17, 1905, a majority of the school patrons residing in said school districts presented to, and filed with, the respective trustees of said townships petitions in writing (the relator being one of said petition
The venue was then changed to the ITowax-d Circuit Court. After the change the. official terms of Rose, Stitt and Graham expired, and Stineman, Gerhart and Graff were duly
Each of the defendants demurred separately to the complaint and alternative writ for insufficiency of facts and want of jurisdiction of the person and of the subject-matter. Many minor objections were made to the complaint. Chief among them are: (1) It does not show that a proper petition was presented to the trustee of Harrison township; (2) it does not show that the trustee of Harrison township consulted with the advisory board of said township with respect to the plan and cost of the joint schoolhouse; (3) it is not alleged that the advisory board found that it was indispensably. necessary to borrow funds for the erection of the schoolhouse.
It is alleged in- the petition and writ that the trustees of the townships named had jointly, by agreement, selected a site in the village of McGrawsville, and had agreed upon the erection of a joint schoolhouse thereon to cost, including the site, $2,500.
“Section 1.
That whenever a majority of the school patrons of two or more adjoining school districts, located in two or more adjacent townships, may heretofore have petitioned, or whenever they may hereafter petition, in substantial compliance with the provisions of section one of an act of the General Assembly of the State of Indiana, in force March 6,1877, being §6001 Burns Revised Statutes 1901, to the trustees of said townships for the establishment of a new school district, and the erection of a joint schoolhouse for a joint or joint graded school, at the place named in said petition, for the accommodation of the school children residing in said school district, and if said trustees shall have granted or may hereafter grant, the prayer of said petition, or if an appeal may have been taken, or may hereafter be taken, to the coun*446 ty superintendent, from the decision of said trustees, refusing to grant the prayer of said petition, under the provisions of §6028 Burns Eevised Statutes 1901, and if on such appeal said superintendent may have granted, or may hereafter grant, the prayer of said petition, then, in either of such events, an emergency shall thereby exist for the procurement of a site and the erection of such schoolhouse at the place named in said petition, and for the expenditure of the money necessary to procure said site and erect such schoolhouse, as contemplated by §8085f Burns Eevised Statutes 1901, and if there is not sufficient money on hands for the purpose, the trustees and the advisory boards of such townships shall proceed to raise the money necessary to meet such emergency, as provided by said section, and shall also procure the necessary site for the erection of said schoolhouse and erect and maintain the same as provided by law. ’ ’
To each of these returns the relator’s demurrer for insufficient facts was sustained, and, the defendants refusing to plead' further, it was adjudged that a peremptory writ of mandate issue to Stineman and Gerhart, as constituting the Advisory Board of Harrison Township, commanding them, as such board, to authorize the trustee of said township to borrow, in some manner provided by law, the sum of $1,059.33 to be used for the purpose prayed for.
It is argued that the title is vague and misleading, that it gives notice of proposed legislation on the general subject of establishing new school districts, and the construction of schoolhouses, while the body of the act limits the operation of the law to the creation of new joint districts from adjoining school districts in adjacent townships. It is not questioned that the title is broad enough to embrace the subject legislated upon. The complaint is that the principal force of the act is a restriction upon the power of advisory boards to determine the emergency for the building of schoolhouses, and it is too broad reasonably to apprise the citizen and legislator of the narrow and concealed limits fixed by .the act. Such an objection is untenable. The restriction complained of is incidental; not controlling. The law affects the authority of advisory boards only as to the building of schoolhouses of a particular class. There is nothing more common
The act of 1903, supra, does not purport to be amendatory of any statute. Both by title and by terms it professes to be an independent act complete within itself. Its reference to other statutes, and particularly to §9595, supra, is manifestly not for the purpose of amendment, but to identify and qualify the facts that should invoke its provisions. In reviewing the doctrine relating to reference statutes of this kind, it is said in 26 Am. and Eng. Ency. Law (2d ed.), 711: “It is generally held that if an act is complete in itself, it may adopt rules of construction or modes of procedure for
The practice of referring to other statutes for the purpose of indicating the particular facts or procedure upon which the law shall operate is quite common in this State. For instance, in the law concerning the construction of free gravel roads on county boundary lines (Acts 1899; p. 468, §§6-9, §§6919-6922 Burns 1901) there are five such references, and perhaps not a chapter of our statutory laws may be found that is free from them. Even if one of the statutes referred to in the act in question should be repealed, the repealed law would remain a document, and might still be examined for the purpose of determining the sense of the living statute. Commonwealth v. Melville (1894), 160 Mass. 307, 35 N. E. 863; the act of 1903, supra, involves the power of advisory boards over the funds necessary to build joint schoolhouses, and may have the effect of modifying or of amending by implication section six of the advisory board law (§9595 Burns 1908, Acts 1901, p. 415, §1). Still as held in State v. Gerhardt (1896), 145 Ind. 439, 452, 33 L. R. A, 313, that alone cannot be said to bring the act within the mischief which §21, article 4, of the Constitution was designed to prohibit. See, also, Board, etc., v. Lindeman (1905), 165 Ind. 186.
It is also contended that the act of March 6, 1877 (Acts 1877, p. 125, §6617 Burns 1908, §4512 R. S. 1881), referred to in the act of 1903, was, by implication, repealed by the act of May 15, 1901 (Acts 1901, p. 53, §1-3, §§6620-6622 Burns' 1908), and that the act of 1903, being intended as supplementary to the repealed act of 1877, is void. There is much similarity in the two acts, yet important differences in both the titles and the bodies of the acts exist; but, believing, as we have indicated, that the act of 1903 is neither amendatory
We are of opinion that the complaint contains all necessary allegations to show a duty on the part of the Advisory Board of Harrison Township to meet and perform the official act commanded, that the return to the alternative writ does not excuse performance, and that the judgment should be affirmed.
Judgment affirmed.