Court Opinion

ID: 9744796
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 22:16:22.736236+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:51.804543
License: Public Domain

*267Concurring Opinion
Mote, J.
I concur in the opinion in this casé but I think it is appropriate to call attention to the fact that this opinion and decision seem to be at variance with the majority opinion of this Court in Good, et al. v. Western Pulaski Co. School Corp., et al. (1965), 139 Ind. App. —, 210 N. E. 2d 100, recently decided by this Court. As in the case now before us, the appellants in the Good case, supra, sought injunctive relief after they had failed to exhaust the provisions of the statute involved therein (Acts of 1959, ch. 202, p. 451, et seq.) In my opinion the majority of the Court in the Good case, supra, erroneously concluded that a group of taxpayers who failed to rely upon and to follow the statutory provisions on the School Reorganization Act of 1959 were entitled to injunctive relief. By analogy, however, the appellant in this case likewise was not and is not entitled to injunctive relief.
In the case now before us the opinion of Judge Smith states:
“The statutory provisions for remonstrance are required to be followed or good cause shown, by proper allegations in the complaint, why they are not. If in situations like the one before us, a single taxpayer can ignore the remedy granted by the General Assembly and wait in silence until a sale of bonds is imminent to proceed by complaint for injunctive relief, statutory provisions for remonstrance would result in nullity.”
I detect no difference, from a legal point of view, between having a single plaintiff or appellant citizen, a taxpayer in his own behalf and in behalf of all other taxpayers residing in the municipality, as here, and a group of taxpayers, as plaintiffs for themselves and all others similarly situated, as in the Good case, supra, and the decision ought not, in my opinion, hinge upon this particular expression.
While I think that the case now before us ought to be decided in favor of the appellee, I must conclude that the decision and reasons stated in this case for denying injunctive *268relief, are in the same category of reasons why said relief, in effect, should not have been granted in the Good case, supra.
I observe that there is complete lack of consistency in the majority determination in the Good case, supra, and the decision in this case to which I lend my concurrence. In each case the undisputed facts lead to the inescapable conclusion that the plaintiffs did not exhaust their statutory relief and remedies; hence, as the opinion herein states, plaintiffs (appellants) in each instance “failed to allege any attempt to comply with the . . . legal remedy (ies) as provided by legislative enactment.”
If, as I believe, the decision and stated reasons in the present appeal are correct, it should follow that the majority decision and stated reasons for reversal in the Good case, supra, are incorrect. In the Good case, supra, this Court, by a majority held, in effect, that an injunction lies, and now, that an injunction does not lie.
Such inconsistencies can only bring more and greater confusion in our judicial processes.
Note. — Reported in 211 N. E. 2d 616.