Reese v. Isola State BankReese v. Isola State Bank
delivered the opinion of the court.
The appellee sued the Wade consolidated school district and the trustees thereof in the court below on two warrants for five hundred dollars each issued by the county superintendent of Sunflower county to the Isola ■Lumber Company on the ordеr of the trustees of the school district for lumber purchased by thе district from the Isola Lumber Company. These warrants were .purchased by the appellee from the Isola Lumber Company for value, and, when presented to the treasurer of the сounty, payment thereof was refused by him by direction of the trusteеs of the school district.
When the case came on for trial, a judgment was rendered for the appellee for the аmount sued for against the school district and the trustees thereof individually. Afterwards, and before the expiration of the term of сourt, the judgment against the school district was set aside on the grоund, according to the briefs of counsel, that the statute does not authorize suits against school districts.
Ayres et al.
v.
Board of Trustees of Leake County Agricultural High School,
The evidence on which the judgment against these trustees is sought to be supported is in substance that the trustees of the district ordered something over one thousand nine hundred dollars worth of lumber from the Isola Lumber Company, аnd, on the representation of the lumber company that the lumber had been shipped and ■was then in transit, the trustees issued a writtеn order to the county superintendent to issue and deliver to the *359 Isola Lumber Company a warrant on the county treasurer therefor. The warrants here sued on were issued by the county treаsurer pursuant to this order. The trustees afterwards discovered that the lumber had not been shipped, whereupon they notified thе treasurer not to pay the warrants, which in the meantime had bеen sold to, the appellee by the Isola Lumber Compаny. It seems from the evidence that afterwards a portion оf the lumber ordered was delivered by the Isola Lumber Company to the school district.
The ground on which it was sought to hold the trustees individually liable for the amount of these warrants is that they were negligent in directing the issuance of the warrants for the lumber before it was delivered, which negligence of the trustees has resulted in the purchase by the appellee in good faith of warrants whiсh he cannot enforce against the school district.
In direсting the county superintendent to issue the warrants, the trustees of this sсhool district were acting in their official capacity as members of the board of trustees of the Wade consolidated school district, and their act in so doing was the act of thе school district and not of the trustees individually; and, conceding for the sake of argument that they were negligent in directing the issuance of the warrants, they are not liable to the appеllee for any damage he may have sustained thereby. The сase in this respect is ruled by
Pidgeon Thomas Iron Co.
v.
Leflore County,
The judgment of the court below will be reversed, and the case will be dismissed in so far as it affects these appellants.
Reversed, and cause dismissed.