Opinion ID: 1724526
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The word shall when used in a statute is ordinarily to be construed as mandatory. Hansen v. Henderson, 244 Iowa 650, 56 N.W.2d 59.

Text: `A ministerial act has been defined as one which a person or board performs upon a given state of facts, in a prescribed manner, in observance of the mandate of legal authority and without regard to or the exercise of his own judgment upon the propriety of the act being done.   ' (Italics ours.) Arrow Express Forwarding Co. v. Iowa State Commerce Comm., Iowa, 130 N.W.2d 451. The existence of two or more petitions before the board at the same time seeking, in different ways, to solve the same problem, may well be a factual circumstance which removes the duty of the board from the ministerial category. In view of our ultimate holding, we do not pass on the mandatory nature of the statute in the present factual situation. II. Mandamus will issue to correct an abuse of discretion. In Miller v. Hanna, 221 Iowa 56, 62, 265 N.W. 127, 130, this court quotes the principle so well stated in 18 R.C.L. 126, Section 39, respecting arbitrary use of discretion, in this language: `It is not accurate to say that the writ will not issue to control discretion, for it is well settled that it may issue to correct an abuse of discretion,    or such an evasion of positive duty, as to amount to a virtual refusal to perform the duty enjoined, or to act at all, in contemplation of law; and in such a case a mandamus would afford a remedy where there was no other adequate remedy provided by law.' (Italics ours.) See Pierce v. Green, 229 Iowa 22, 294 N.W. 237, 131 A.L.R. 335 where the authorities are extensively collected. III. The board of directors had unsuccessfully submitted four bond issues in excess of $800,000. before plaintiffs challenged them in court. For more than six months plaintiffs had been trying to have one or more of their $500,000. bond issue proposals submitted to the electorate. The consistent failure to recognize plaintiffs' right to have an election on the $500,000. bond issue constituted arbitrary and capricious action subject to relief by mandamus. If the board is assumed to have discretion to choose between the propositions contending for submission to the voters, it follows that the exercise of such discretion should not be disturbed unless a clear abuse is evident. But the discretion is not absolute. The desire of at least 25 percent of the last voting electorate was evidenced by the petitions filed. Record evidence subsequent to the filing of the first petitions shows that the large bond issues have now been submitted six times and defeated six times, while plaintiffs' petitions were being sidetracked. The seventh large bond issue election has been halted by action of this court. It is not necessary to decide at what point the action of the board ceased to become a valid exercise of discretion and became an arbitrary and capricious refusal to submit the alternate proposition. It is sufficient that such point has passed. Plaintiffs are entitled to their day before the electorate. Under our bond issue laws it is the voters; not the board of education and not the courts, who must ultimately decide this issue. Plaintiffs' petition in acceptable statutory form could not validly be ignored ad infinitum. IV. There is no authority cited for the proposition that submission of a bond issue to the voters voids a petition for another bond issue which is on file at the time of the first election. The Corpus Juris Secundum citations offered by defendants are concerned with reorganization elections, not apropos to this problem. The January 4, 1964, election did not void the petition filed by plaintiffs on December 26, 1963. The request contained in the January 4, 1964, petition did not invalidate that petition or make it illegal. We need not now decide the effect of an action by the petitioners subsequent to the January 7, 1964, election had said election been successful. The January 7, 1964, election was unsuccessful and no effort was made by the petitioners, or any of them, to withdraw the petition or any names therefrom. Therefore, the first $500,000. bond issue petition must be honored by submission to the voters in legal manner. Submission shall be of that proposition only and election thereon shall be held before any other bond issue election in defendant district. Since all three of plaintiffs' petitions seek the same result, submission of the first petition in point of time will meet all legal requirements under the facts of this case. The other two petitions need not be submitted. This is not to be taken as a prohibition against plaintiffs submitting later petitions at later times.