Court Opinion

ID: 9764595
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 03:32:02.522434+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:52:16.467203
License: Public Domain

Opinion on Motion for Rehearing
PER CURIAM.
We realize that the County Board did not have authority to consolidate Hortense District with a noncontiguous district; but this does not necessarily make the County Board’s first proceeding void for all purposes. The first proceeding before the County Board might still be regarded as a valid assumption of jurisdiction if the County Board be allowed, under the particular statute which gave them the power they were using, to amend their orders and their course of action according to facts discovered by them while they were attempting, in good faith, to exercise this *820power and formulate a final order. We think they ought to be allowed this power of amendment under this particular statute for reasons stated in our opinion; and we might add this, that the County Board’s business is not simple and that the members might well mistakenly assume that districts were contiguous which actually were not. The minutes of the County Board’s second meeting show that such a mistake happened in this case. Thus the minutes of the Board’s meeting on July 1st (the second meeting) state: “After the County School Board was informed that the Corrigan District and the Hortense District were not contiguous districts * ⅜ Why deprive the County Board of the power to correct this error? Instead of restricting the County Board’s power as the plaintiff’s argument necessarily would do, why not allow room for the Board’s discretion? The breadth of this discretion is apparent from Article 2922-18; the Board acts sua sponte and furthermore it determines its own procedure. Plaintiff’s argument that the first proceeding before the Board was void for all purposes ignores the broad discretion given the County Board, puts an unnecessary limitation upon a useful power, enables critics to interrupt a bona fide effort of the County Board to perform a duty enjoined (not merely given but enjoined) upon them by the legislature, and is inconsistent with the purpose expressed in Article 2922-18. None of the decisions cited by the plaintiff states any rule to the contrary; each involved a different sort of power and a different kind of situation. The power to order an election, pursuant to a petition or without a petition, is not comparable to the power given the County Board under Article 2922-18. The parties should bear in mind that the County Board can adjust the affairs of these dormant districts as fairly and as efficiently as can any other person. See the remarks of the Supreme Court of the United States regarding State Courts in Missouri Pac. R..R. Co. v. Fitzgerald, 160 U.S. 5S6, 16 S. Ct. 389, 40 L.Ed. 536, at page 543. We adhere to the opinion that the first proceeding before - the County Board manifested in good faith an intention to use the power to consolidate Hortense District with some contiguous district and that under the circumstances of this case it brought that power into use and exercise and gave the County Board prior jurisdiction of the consolidation of Hortense District with some contiguous district or districts. The County Board’s manifest intent was to deal with the dormant Hortense District, as directed by statute, and once it initiated that program of action, it acquired prior jurisdiction of all attempts and efforts to care for the situation in which the Hortense District was found. If its first step was inept and misdirected, it had the power to amend and correct its purpose, and when it did make an order consolidating Hortense with what was actually a contiguous district, such was a valid order.