Gerald C. Mann 

Hon. Louis FI. Crump 

County attorney 

This Opinion Modifies Opinion 

0-765 due to amendment of Law. 

E oleman County See also V-1051 

oleman, Texas 

Opinion No. O-4595 

Re: Employment of school superintendent by consolidated common 

Dear Sir: school district. 

We have received your letter of May 12, 1942, which 

we quote in part as follows: 

"In January 1942 the board of trustees in a 

common consolidated school district in Coleman 

County, Texaq, entered into a contract with the 

school superintendent employing him to continue 

in such capacity for the school year 1942-43. 

TYO new trustees were elected in A pril 1942 and 

have duly qualified as such jlithin the time prescribed by law. Up to the present time this contract has not been presented to the County Superintendent for his approval. 

"IS this contract valid and binding against 

the board of trustees in view of the fact that two 

new members have been elected and taken office 

since the date of such contract?" 

In your letter you cite ,Rrticle 2750a-1, Vernon's 

Annotated Civil Statutes, which reads as follows: 

"That trustees of any Common School District 

or Consolidated Common School District shall 

have authority to make contracts for a period of 

time not in excess of two (2) years with principals 

A 

superintendents, and teachers of said Common chool Districts or Consolidated Common School 

Districts, provided that such contracts shall be 

approved by the County Superintendent. 

tract may be signed bv the T rustee s of,=- 

School Districts or Common Consolidated Schzol Di.sms until the newly elected trustees have aual$,- 

fied and taken the oath of office. Acts 1941, 
Hon. Louis M. Crump, page 2 

47th Leg., S.B. #126, 1 1. (Emphasis supplied) 

This department held in opinion No* 0-765 (conference opinion No. 3069) that a provision of Article 2750a 

(Acts 1937, 45th Leg., 

derscored above, 

Ch. 267, I 11, similar to the one unwas unconstitutional because of the defectIve caption of the act. The 47th Legislature apparently to 

remedy this defect passed Senate Bill 126. (Article 2750a-1) 

You wish to know whether the provisions of Article 

2750a-1 affect the validity of the contract under consideration. We are of the opinion that this question should be 

answered in the negative. 

The language used by the Legislature in Article 

2750a-1 very plainly indicates that the feature sought to be 

remedied was the practice whereby defeated school trustees 

would join with a minority of the new board in signing contracts before the Qewly elected” trustee could qualify. HOWever, it is obvious that there can be no “new elected” trustee until after the election on the first Saturday in ,April 

in each year as provided in Article 2745. The contract in 

question was entered into in January; therefore, there were 

no “newly elected” trustees. It follows that this provision 

of Rrticle 2750a-1 is not applicable. Opinion No. O-04. 

You state in your letter that the contract has not 

been presented tQ the county superintendent for his approval. 

Articles 2750a and 2750a-1 authorize contracts of this nature, 

and provide “that such contracts shall be approved by the 

County Superintendent .I’ No time limit is specified as to when 

such contracts should be presented to the county superintendent. Apparently, a reasonable time was intended, and we do 

not believe that such reasonable time has passed, especially 

fn view of the fact that the time covered by the contract does 

not start to run until the school year 1942-1943. 

We quote the following from the opinion of the court 

in Mller et al. v. Smiley et al., 65 S.W.(2d) 417 (W.E.Ref.1: 

I, 

. . . But we cannot bring ourselves to believe 

that a mere fortuitous change in the membership of the 

board, prior to the formal approval by the county superintendent of the lawful contracts theretofore made by 

the board permits such contracts to be arbitrarily revoked by Ihe new board and the county superintendent 

without any charge of fraud, imposition, or mutual mistake, and with no hearing given the teachers of such 

intended revocation of their contracts. 
Hon. Louis M. Grump, page 3 

"It seems to us that to hold otherwise would 

be to violate the plainest principles of fairness 

and justice, and to acquiesce in arbitrary and 

dictatorial powers not conferred by our statutes 

upon the boards of school trustees, or county superintendents." 

In view of the foregoing you are respectfully advised that a contract between the board of trustees of a 

common school district or consolidated common school district 

and a school superintendent entered into prior to the election 

of trustees under Articles 2745 and 2750a-1 is not of itself 

invalid even though the contract has not at the time of such 

election or qualification of such new trustees been approved 

by the county superintendent. 

This opinion is expressly limited to the fact situation as disclosed in your letter of request. 

Very truly yours 

ATTORNEY GENERAL OF TEXAS 

By /s/ George W. Sparks 

George W. Sparks, Assistant 

APPROVED MAY 26, 1942 

/s/ Gerald C. Mann 

ATTORNEY GENERAL OF TEXAS 

APPROVED: OPINION COMMITTEE 

BY: BWB, CHAIRMAN 

GWS:mtiwb