Court Opinion

ID: 7815426
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-09-07 17:34:25.129699+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:30:35.236912
License: Public Domain

Ed. F. McFaddin, Associate Justice (concurring). As stated in my dissenting opinion in Garrett v. Faubus, 230 Ark. 445, 323 S. W. 2d 877, (opinion of April 27, 1959), I regard Act No. 4 of the Second Extraordinary Session of the 1958 Legislature to be violative of Section 1, Article 14 of the Arkansas Constitution; and I think the entire plan of closing the schools should be declared unconstitutional. I continue to adhere to the views so expressed. If those views had prevailed, the Act No. 5, here involved, would fall, because it would have no foundation with Act No. 4 stricken. But, even so, in Garrett v. Faubus, a majority of this Court held that the Act No. 4 was constitutional for the “present emergency”. In view of such holding, I certainly think Act No. 5 should be sustained. It is a serious effort to help provide schooling for children whose schools have been closed. Of course, the schools should not have been closed, but they have been; and in Act No. 5 the State has recognized its duty to provide education. Act No. 5 applies only to State funds — -not to the millage funds voted in the school district. "We have in equity the doctrine known as cy-pres, which means, “as near as possible. I think Act No. 5 should be upheld under the doctrine of cy-pres. It is an attempt to provide education “as near as possible”. It is no more a diversion of State funds than the application of the equitable doctrine of cy-pres is a diversion of the original trust funds. So, even though I regard Act No. 4 as unconstitutional, I nevertheless think that Act No. 5 should be upheld, since the majority has refused to go along with me in my views on Act No. 4.