140 Ky. 157 | Ky. Ct. App. | 1910
Opinion op the Court by
Affirming.
An election was held on September 12, 1908, in a district embracing the town of LaFayette in Christian county to take the sense of the legal voters on the establish
The first point made is that the boundary of the district as set out in the petition, and in the order of the court, is not sufficiently definite or certain. The boundary is not given by course and distance hut runs from one designated point 'to another, as from farm to farm, including or excluding a farm as the case might be. There is no uncertainty in the boundary. It is not necessary that the boundary should be given by course and distance. It is sufficient if it' is definitely indicated by known natural objects. Another objection is that the district was gerrymandered and not fairly laid off. Previous to the year 1908, the town of LaFayette was a part of school district No. 29. In the year 1907, a vote was taken in district No. 29, on the question of establishing a graded school, and resulted against the tax. So when the petition was gotten up for another vote the next year, the whole of district No. 29 was not included in it. The lines of the proposed district were so run as to leave out of it a number of persons who were opposed to the tax. It is said that the lines were run in a very zig zag fashion, and that to establish the district in this way is to sanction an evasion of the statute. There is nothing in the statute requiring the whole of a common school district to be included in a graded school district. The statute necessarily contemplated that parts of districts may be included and other parts left cut. The petition must be endorsed by the trustee of each district affected, and it must also be approved by the county superintend•ent, the intent of the statute being to trust the matter to these officers on the idea that they will not approve petitions where districts are gerrymandered in such a manner as to he prejudicial to the cause of education. The purpose of the statute is to allow the peojDle who so desire, to establish a graded school, and the court would be very slow to set up its judgment against the judgment of school officers in a matter of this sort. The persons who were left out were opposed to the tax, and if the
Lastly, it is insisted that at the election a number of persons voted for the tax who were not legal voters, aud that others who were legal voters and wished to vote against the tax were not allowed to vote, and so a majority of the legal voters, did not vote for the tax. The returns of the election were canvassed by the county commissioners and the result was duly certified.' There is no provision of law for the contesting of such an election. For the court now to hear the evidence as to who was or was not a legal voter, and how he voted or would have vol/>d, is for the court simply to hear a contest of the election. If the Legislature had intended that such contests should be heard, it would have provided for them, and when it has not provided for 'the court hearing such a contest, for the court to take jurisdiction in the matter would he for the court to assume a jurisdiction that has not been conferred upon it. In Patterson v. Knapp, 125 Ky. 474, referring to a number of other authorities,- we said:
“Courts of equity have not inherently, and had not at common law, the jurisdiction to try contested election cases. Nor have any other courts for that matter.
A contrary rule was not laid down or recognized in ■ Hundley v. Singleton, 23 R. 2006, or in Williams v. Lovelace, 28 R. 957. Both these opinions were written before the one above quoted from. Neither of them involved any effort to contest the election. In Hundley v. Singleton is was claimed that some property in the district was more than two and one half miles from the site of the proposed school house which is forbidden by the statute, and the court simply said that if this was true, this property could not be taxed, and that the validity of the election was not affected because none of these persons voted. In Williams v. Lovelace it was claimed that in running-out the boundary two or three persons were taken in who were not in fact included in it as established by the county court and the court again simply said that this did not invalidate the election because it did not affect the result. There is nothing- in this opinion in conflict with the previous decisions of the court or with the later case of Patterson v. Knapp.
Judgment affirmed.