Case ID: nh_3/html/0168-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      By the court.\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

SCHOOL DISTRICT No. 2, IN ALTON, vs. MOSES GILMAN et a.
    
    The inhabitants of a town at a legal town meeting voted to divide the town int® school districts, and appointed the selectmen a committee to make tie division.™ The selectmen div.ded the town into districts, but their doings were never ratifi* ed by the town at a legal meetings it was held that the town was not legally divided into districts.
    This was an action on the case for a misapplication of the money assessed by the defendants, Selectmen of Jllton, for for the purpose of keeping schools in said town.
    The cause was tried here at September term, 1824, upon the general issue, when the plaintiffs shewed in evidence to the jury a warrant for warning a town meeting, to be held on the 25th May, 1822, in which was an article as follows :
    tc To see if the town will divide a certain portion thereof, “ heretofore neglected, into school districts, and make such “ alterations in any or all the school districts in said town, a* “ they shall think necessary and proper, or district the town 4‘anew.” '
    They then showed two votes of the town, at a meeting held on the 25th May, 1822, as,follows
    “ 4th. Voted, to district the town anew,”
    “ 5th. Voted, that.the selectmen district the town.”
    They also gave in evidence a paper under the names of the selectmen, purporting to be a description of the several school districts in the town of Alton, as established in the year 1822. This paper contained a description of school district No. 2, but it did not appear, that these doings of. the selectmen, had ever been ratified by the town.
    The plaintiffs then offered to prove, that the selectmen had since appropriated'the money, raised for the purpose of keeping schools, comformably to the said division of the town into districts. But the court, being of opinion that air the evidence thus offered, and proposed to be offered to the jury, did not show the town to be legally divided into districts, directed a verdict to be taken for the defendants, subject to the opinion of the court, upon the foregoing case.
    
      Woodman, for the plaintiffs.
    
      Mason, for the defendants.
   By the court.

-The statute -of December 28, 1825, entitled an act empowering school districts to build and repair school houses, and. regulating schools,” enacts,that the several towns be empowered, at any legal meeting for that purpose, to divide the towns into school districts and to define the limits thereof, and the same from time to time to alter, in such manner as shall be thought fit and convenient, (1 N. H Laws 366,) and the question is, whether this power, thus given to a town, to be exercised at a legal meeting, can be delegated to the selectmen ?

That a town may appoint its selectmen a committee to divide it into school districts, and that the report of such a committee, accepted by the town at a legal meeting, may be a valid division of the town into school districts, is not doubted. But, can the doings of the committee be valid, until ratified by the town ? We are of opinion that that they cannot.

T’ Ivd the statute requires to be done by the town, at a l;e-gal meeting, cannot be done by a committee,

Judgmf.nl on the verdict,