16 W. Va. 527 | W. Va. | 1880
delivered the opinion of the Court:
Does the bill present a proper cáse for the interposition of a court of equity?
Bull et al. v. Read et al., 13 Gratt. 78, was an injunction to a levy for taxes for school-purposes, on the ground that it was illegally levied under the act providing for free schools in the first magisterial district of Accomack county, and on the further ground that the said act was unconstitutional. It was claimed by the defendants that a court of equity had no jurisdiction in the case. Judge' Lee, who delivered the opinion of the court in that case, said at page eighty-seven : “It may be that for each act
Section two of chapter one hundred and twenty-three of the acts of the Legislature of 1872-3, among other things provides, that “ The board of education for each district shall assemble on the second Monday after said election, and, a majority of the same being present, shall open and examine the election-records of the several sub-dislricts. They shall ascertain therefrom who has received the largest number of votes for the several officers of the ’district board of education, and give certificates of their election to the persons entitled thereto. They shall also ascertain the sum of the votes cast in the several sub-districts, of their district for the person or persons voted for as county superintendent, and within five days report the same to the clerk of the county court. * * * * If a majority of the ballots given in the district have written or printed upon them "for power to levy’ it shall be construed as conferring upon the board of education the authority of the people to make the annual levies required in the thirty-eighth and •fortieth sections of this chapter, for each year during their term of office.”
It is not decided in this case, how far a court of equity would enquire into the legality of an election upon a bill to enjoin the collection of taxes, on the ground that the members of the board which levied the tax wore not legally elected. It might be that such board assumed to act without the pretence of an election, or that they claimed to be elected by a town-meeting, or in some other mode not authorized by law. These questions do not arise in this cause. The election, so far as the bill shows, was held according to law; and we have seen that the board did what the law required them to do. It was therefore not necessary for an act to be passed legalizing the election ; and we do not decide whether the said act is constitutional or otherwise, as the question does not properly arise.
The order of the judge of the circuit court of Monon-galia county dissolving the injunction, and the decree of
Orders Affirjied.