43 Vt. 362 | Vt. | 1871
The opinion of the court was delivered by
The record in evidence shows that at the school district meeting of April 4,1868, “ it was voted that the district build a new school-house, 16 for and 11 against it.” The evidence offered by the plaintiff to prove that seven of the sixteen who voted in the affirmative in that vote were not jlegal voters in that school-district meeting, was properly rejected. The records of the proceedings of municipal public corporations, such as towns and school districts, can not be' collaterally attacked 'and overthrown by evidence of this character. Important interests are entrusted to, and corresponding duties imposed upon, these public municipal corporations, of a governmental character; and such faith and credit should be given to the records of their proceedings, within the scope of their powers, as will enable them to perform these duties, without unnecessary risk and embarrassment. The legal intendment of the record in this case is, that the vote was passed by the votes of such persons as were legal voters. If that intendment could be contradicted in a proceeding brought directly and seasonably to set aside the vote, or to restrain the district or its officers from acting under it, (which we have no occasion to decide,) the record cannot be annulled in this collateral manner by the evidence offered. We are not referred to any authority warranting it; and neither principle nor sound policy requires or justifies it. It is necessarily one of the incidental powers of towns and school districts to decide, in the course of their proceedings, who are inhabitants of the town or district and voters in their meetings. These questions may involve matters of fact and law
But if the plaintiff had proved what he offered to show, and thereby rendered that vote of April 4th to build a new schoolhouse null and void, it would not have rendered the tax in question invalid. The subsequent votes of the district at the several adjourned meetings are sufficient to sustain the validity of the tax. At the meeting of April 11th, “ it was voted to raise a tax, not to exceed $2000, on the grand list of the district to build a new school-house.” This vote, together with the other votes at this and the subsequent adjourned meetings, among which is a vote appointing a building committee, a vote locating the house agreeably to the report of the committee, designating the lot on which it should be built; and finally on the last adjourned meeting held June 9, 1868, a vote that the building committee of district No. 2 be instructed to unite with the trustees of the Clarendon Town Hall Association to build the contemplated building—and a vote that the district adopt the size of the plan as reported by Mr. Horton, 34 by 50—and a vote that the building committee be instructed to proceed at once with the building, is sufficient without the vote of April 4th, to warrant the assessment of the tax upon which the defendant took the property in question. But it is claimed by the plaintiff’s counsel that by showing that seven of the sixteen votes in the affirmative of the . vote to build were illegal, thus leaving a majority of the legal votes in the negative, the l’ecord of that vote is to have the same effect as if it showed that the vote was not to" build a new school-house ; and that by the rules of parliamentary proceedings the same subject
It is insisted that the school district had no right bylaw to unite as it did with the incorporated association called the Clarendon Town Hall and Literary Association, in building the house ; and that the vote to do so, and the erection of the building, in pursuance of that vote, two stories high, 34 by 50 feet, in connection with the Association, on the lot purchased by the district, the lower story to belong to the district and the upper story to said Association, rendered the vote to raise the tax to build a new school-house void. We are unable to see any objection, either in principle or policy, to the erection of a school-house by the school district in this manner; or any want of authority for that purpose. The, district and the association are not joint tenants, or tenants in common of the house ; the district owns the land and has the title
As to the validity of the rate-bill and warrant, under which the defendant justifies, it appears thát, by a vote of the district, one half the tax was to be paid by July 1, and the remainder by September 1, 1868; and that the prudential committee issued two separate rate-bills, each for one half of the tax, against each tax payer, and that several of the taxes were collected upon the first and second rate-bills, but no part of the plaintiff’s tax had been collected. The committee then thought best to put the whole tax in one rate-bill, and issued a third rate-bill accordingly a substitute for the other two, to be collected so far as related to the taxes then unpaid. This bill on its face embraced the whole taxes, paid and unpaid ; the plaintiff’s tax in this bill being equal to the sum of his tax in the two former bills. The defendant justifies under this third rate-bill and warrant. The plaintiff’s counsel insist that the committee had no right to issue more than one rate-bill, and they having issued one legal rate-bill, the one under which the defendant justifies is void. In support of this proposition three cases are referred to. In two of these cases, Dillingham v. Snow et als., 5 Mass., 546, and Williams v. School District in Lunenburgh, 21 Pick., 75, there is nothing that touches the subject. In the other case, Inglee v. Bosworth, 5 Pick., 500, one point which was made in the case was, whether after a legal assessment and war
As to the exception to the parol evidence to prove the contents of the notices of sale posted up by the defendant, whether such papers come within the rule or not, requiring the paper to be pro
Judgment affirmed.