Opinion ID: 1303484
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: whether the agar school district and board of education have standing to sue and maintain suit against sully county and the pierre, sully buttes, and gettysburg school districts.

Text: Standing is established through being a `real party in interest' and it is statutorily controlled. Wang v. Wang, 393 N.W.2d 771, 775 (S.D.1986). Under SDCL 15-6-17(a), [e]very action shall be prosecuted in the name of the real party in interest. The real party in interest requirement for standing is satisfied if the litigant can show `that he personally has suffered some actual or threatened injury as a result of the putatively illegal conduct of the Defendant.' Parsons v. South Dakota Lottery Commission, 504 N.W.2d 593, 595 (S.D.1993) (quoting Gladstone, Realtors v. Bellwood, 441 U.S. 91, 99, 99 S.Ct. 1601, 1608, 60 L.Ed.2d 66, 76 (1979)). The various taxpayer plaintiffs in this case clearly have standing to bring suit. [A] taxpayer need not have a special interest in an action or proceedings nor suffer special injury to himself to entitle him to institute an action to protect public rights. Wyatt v. Kundert, 375 N.W.2d 186, 195 (S.D.1985) (citing State ex rel. Jensen v. Kelly, 65 S.D. 345, 347, 274 N.W. 319, 321 (1937)). In contrast, the School District and Board of Education are not taxpayers. The trial court concluded that these entities failed to establish any other injury that would satisfy requirements for standing. Agar argues that the School District and Board of Education have suffered actual or threatened injury as a result of the conduct of the Sully County Treasurer and Auditor. These claimed injuries consist of (1) the disbursement of the additional tax to the Pierre, Gettysburg, and Sully Buttes School Districts rather than the Agar School District; (2) the usurpation of the Board's and School District's taxing authority through the failure of the Sully County Auditor to obtain the approval of the Agar School District or Board of Education before carrying out the tax adjustment; (3) the possibility that the School District will be required to dissolve or combine with another school district under SDCL 13-6-9.4; and (4) potential liability for breach of the school district's and school board's fiduciary duty to taxpayers to levy and spend no more taxes than are reasonably necessary. None of the alleged injuries cited by Agar satisfy standing requirements. Agar School District does not dispute that it received all of the money it requested for the relevant school year. Consequently, the fact that the additional tax will be disbursed to other school districts does not affect Agar School District's operation. Claims of harmful usurpation of the Board's or School District's taxing powers are likewise unconvincing in light of the School District's receipt of the full amount of tax money it requested. See Nebraska Sch. Dist. No. 148 v. Lincoln Airport Authority, 371 N.W.2d 258, 261 (Neb.1985) (school district lacked standing to challenge real estate acquisitions by airport authority where school district was not a taxpayer and would therefore suffer no increased tax burden or public loss from the expenditure, and school district would not lose money as a result of the acquisition). Furthermore, a hypothetical or abstract interest is insufficient to confer standing to bring a declaratory judgment action. Mosher Steel-Virginia v. Teig, 229 Va. 95, 327 S.E.2d 87, 91 (1985). Liability for breach of a nebulous fiduciary duty to taxpayers is highly speculative given the fact that neither the School District nor the Board of Education levied the allegedly tortious tax. Similarly, there is no evidence that imminent dissolution or recombination of the Agar School District is contemplated. Lastly, Agar School District argues that its contracts with other school districts for the education of students confers standing in this action. The rights and liabilities of the parties to those contracts is not at issue in this case. Those contracts are only tangentially related to this action. This attenuated relationship is not sufficient to confer standing on Agar School District or the Board of Education. We are therefore unable to conclude that Agar School District or the Board of Education have a definite interest in the matters in contention in the sense that [their] rights will be significantly affected by a resolution of the contested point. Bonan v. City of Boston, 398 Mass. 315, 496 N.E.2d 640, 644 (1986). The trial court's decision to dismiss Agar School District and the Board of Education for lack of standing is affirmed. However, because the Agar taxpayers have standing to bring suit, we must address the remaining issues presented in this case with reference to those plaintiffs.