Court Opinion

ID: 9710174
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:03:50.102986+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:54.895838
License: Public Domain

COLER, Justice
(dissenting).
*557I would reverse and remand the case with direction to grant the injunction. As stated in the majority opinion the “school administration” adopted the attendance areas. The board policy left the entire matter up to the administration and took no action itself to adopt or ratify the act of the administration consisting solely of drawing a general map of the City of Sioux Falls which did not indicate the street upon which petitioner actually resided.
SDCL 13-28-19 grants authority to the independent school board to “assign and distribute the resident students eligible for secondary education among the high schools in the district.” The legislature may delegate such a legislative function and has done so. “In the exercise of such delegated authority, the'board acts as the agent of the legislature and its power is limited by the statute vesting the authority.” Sunnywood Common School District No. 46 of Minnehaha County v. County Board of Education of Minnehaha County, 1964, 81 S.D. 110, 131 N.W.2d 105. The board cannot delegate its authority to the superintendent of schools or other officers as it attempted to do by policy statements designated as Policy 5117 and 5119. Camp Crook Ind. Dist. v. Shevling, 1936, 65 S.D. 14, 270 N.W. 518; 78 C.J.S. Schools and School Districts § 99, p. 848. This is true because, as stated in Sutherland on Statutory Construction, 4th Ed., § 4.14, “When the power delegated is legislative, the purpose of a plural-headed agency is defeated if subdelegation is permitted. The legislative desire for multiple judgment in rule-making would be defeated.”