Court Opinion

ID: 9810754
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 21:57:30.107921+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:40:11.292787
License: Public Domain

Stagy, C. J.
The ease turns on a single question. It is this: Does, the special authorization to the counties of the State, as contained in section 8 of the County Finance Act, Michie’s Code, 1334 (8), to issue bonds and notes for the special purposes therein named, including the *559“erection and purchase of schoolhouses” and their “necessary equipment,” carry with it special authority to erect and maintain teacherages in connection with rural consolidated schools ? The trial court answered the question in the negative. We cannot say there is error in this ruling.
To hold as a matter of law that a teacherage is a part of the necessary equipment of a rural consolidated school would be to go farther than the General Assembly has gone, and, perhaps, entail some judicial engraftment. Greenbanks v. Boutwell, 43 Vt., 207. The statute is not fraught with any dubiety of meaning. A teacherage, which is to he run for profit and solely for the benefit of the teachers, is not included within its terms. As was said in Hansen v. Lee, 119 Wash., 691, 206 Pac., 927, “It is not necessary to cite authorities to support the statement that school districts and their directors have only such powers as are by statute given them. A careful reading of all the provisions of statutes affecting this question . . . shows that they do not, either expressly or by reasonable implication, grant any power or authority to school districts, ... or to their board of directors, to erect dwellings for the use of school teachers.”
The cases cited by the defendants, Adams v. Miles, 300 S. W. (Tex. Civ. App.), 211, and Young v. Linwood, 97 S. W. (2d) (Ark.), 627, are neither controlling nor directly in point. Indeed, the subsequent reversal of the Adams case, 35 S. W. (2d) (Tex.), 123, would seem to make it more nearly an authority for the plaintiff. Mor can the defendants derive any comfort from anything that was said in Taylor v. Board of Education, 206 N. C., 263, 173 S. E., 608, or Frazier v. Comrs., 194 N. C., 49, 138 S. E., 433.
On the record as presented, the judgment would seem to be correct.
Affirmed.