Frankish v. Goodrich
Before: Henshaw
Synopsis
High School District—Severance or Outside Territory—Inclusion within City School District—Loss or Outside Taxation.—Outside territory formerly belonging to a high school district with which it is connected, upon its inclusion within the boundaries of' a city, becomes part of the school district of such city, and is thereby-severed from the outside school district and high school district of which it formed a part, and cannot be subjected to any further-burdens of taxation for the support of such high school district.
Id.—Construction of Political Code—Extent of High School District.—Under the sections of the Political Code bearing on the question, a high school district, so far as its territorial limits are concerned, is not a distinct entity from the school district.
Id.—Enlargement or Contraction of Boundaries.—When a school district has resolved to erect and maintain a high school, and has taken proper steps to that end, a so-called high school district is created. But it comprises the territory of the school district, its boundaries are the boundaries of the school district, and those boundaries are enlarged or contracted, increased or diminished, as are the boundaries of the school district. When the school district loses part of its territory, so necessarily the high school district loses the same part of its territory.
Id.—Nature of High School District.—For obvious reasons a high school district, though having the same territory as the school district, has its own distinct funds, property, and government. It is maintained at the expense of the school district, and if it is discontinued its property is to be sold and, together with the school funds on hand, go to the school district.
Id.—Territory Excluded from High- School District—Taxation.— Territory excluded from a high school district by becoming part of another school district is subject only to taxation in such other school district of which it becomes a part.
HENSHAW, J.
This is in form an action by a resident taxpayer of the Ontario high school district, on behalf of himself and all other residents and taxpayers of the district, to restrain the school trustees of the Ontario school district, and the trustees of the Upland school district, and the county superintendent of schools of the county from acting as a union high school board of trustees, and from exercising or attempting to exercise any authority or control over the high school or property or the funds of the Ontario high school district; in effect the action seeks to have defined the boundaries and
status
of the Ontario high school district, concerning which matters doubt has arisen, growing out of the following facts:—
[615]
The Ontario school district came into existence in 1901 and its territory comprised all of the lands of the city of Ontario, a municipal corporation of the sixth class, and certain additional outside territory adjacent to the city. The inhabitants of the Ontario school district, as thus constituted, voted to establish, and in due course did establish and maintain, a high school therein, and thus the Ontario high school district, embracing the same territory as the Ontario school district, came into and continued in existence. In 1906 the city of Upland was incorporated as a city of the sixth class. Its boundaries included a portion of the territory adjacent to the city of Ontario, which territory had formerly been a part of the Ontario school district. They likewise embraced territory which had belonged to still a third school district and which had never been a part of the Ontario district. By virtue of the incoporation of the city of Upland, all of the territory within its corporate boundaries became, by operation of law, a school district known to the law as the Upland school district. The position of appellants is that, by the annexation to the Upland school district of the outlying territory formerly a part of the territory of the Ontario school district and Ontario high school district, the territory so annexed did not cease to be a part of the territory of the Ontario high school district, but did at once become also a part of the Upland school district; that thus, by operation of law, there was ■created a union high school district, composed of the Upland school district and the Ontario school district, and the defendants were therefore justified in undertaking, as they did, to control the funds and property of the Ontario high school district while acting as the trustees of the Ontario-Upland union high school district.
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