9 S.W.2d 802 | Ark. | 1928
This suit was brought by five citizens and taxpayers of Higginson Special School District, three of whom were formerly directors thereof, to have canceled as illegal a certain $500 warrant of the district issued to appellants, as attorneys' fees for services, and a $62.50 warrant, payable to the chancery court clerk, Ben D. Smith, of White County.
The court below sustained appellee's demurrer to the complaint and amended complaint of appellants, and, *1163 appellants declining to plead further, dismissed it for want of equity.
From the allegations of the pleading it appears that there were five directors of the Higginson Special School District; that the board, by a majority vote, attempted in 1926 to issue and sell $20,000 of bonds of the district for refunding its debts, and other purposes. The two minority directors, with other citizens and taxpayers, brought suit to enjoin the issuance of the warrants, and employed appellants as attorneys. The suit resulted in the district being enjoined from issuing bonds in excess of the amount necessary to refund the old indebtedness, $15,900, etc. Phillips v. Baker, 172 Ark. 727,
Appellants insist that the court erred in holding that the new school board could not ratify the acts of the two minority directors, Phillips and Shouse, with the other patrons and taxpayers, in their employment of attorneys to protect the interest of the district in the litigation against the majority action of the board and to represent the district in the suit pending in the chancery court, but this contention is without merit.
School districts are authorized to employ attorneys or ratify the employment of them in their behalf as a necessary incident to their power to contract and to sue and be sued. State v. Aven,
It is no longer questioned that invalid contracts made by a school district may be ratified by the board of directors by their full knowledge of and acquiescence therein, but no contract void for want of power to make it in the beginning can be ratified. Dell Special School Dist. v. Johnson,
The old board of directors certainly would not have had the power and there could have been no necessity for its employment of attorneys to resist and enjoin the *1165 action of the majority of the board duly taken in proceeding to refund the indebtedness of the district, under the law authorizing it to be done, the board having plenary power to rescind its action and desist from any such proceeding. Consequently the transaction or contract of employment of the attorneys by the minority members and other taxpayers, to resist the action of the board, was beyond the power of the school board to make, and, being so, could not be ratified by the new board of directors.
The question of benefit or advantage derived by or resulting to the district because of the services rendered by these attorneys could not affect the district's liability, since the board of directors alone could contract a debt against the district or ratify an invalid contract within its power to make. The new board was under no necessity to prosecute further the pending suit for enjoining the district from the issuance of bonds, since it had ample authority to revoke the action of the old board authorizing it done, to refuse to do it in furtherance of the public interest if it regarded such action necessary.
We do not regard it necessary to pass upon the question of the intervener's rights, since no judgment was rendered on the intervention, and consequently its rights are not affected by this appeal.
We find no error in the record, and the decree is affirmed.