Hughes v. Ewing

Harrison, J. The board of supervisors of Fresno [417]County, on September 6, 1890, changed the boundaries of Fresno City school district by excluding therefrom certain lands described in the complaint herein, and transferring the same to other districts. Prior to that date, the electors of the district had voted to raise the sum of six thousand dollars for the purpose of building a school-house, but the trustees of the district did not certify the fact to the supervisors until the 23d of September, 1890. Thereafter, on the first Monday of October, the supervisors, at the time of levying the county taxes, levied a tax sufficient to raise the sum thus voted upon all the property that was within the district at the time the vote was had, including the lands described in the complaint. The present action is brought by the plaintiffs as owners of said lands to declare the tax null and void as to those lands, and to restrain the defendant Ewing, the tax collector of the county, from collecting the same, and from selling any of the lands described in the complaint for said tax.

A school district, when organized as provided by the Political Code, is a public corporation of a quasi municipal character, possessing such authority as has been conferred by the legislature, to be exercised in the mode and within the limits prescribed by the statute. The power to change the boundaries of the district, as well as to define them in the first instance, is of legislative origin, and, whether exercised immediately by the legislature or° mediately by a board of supervisors — the local legislature — is, whenever exercised, a legislative act. It is well settled that the legislature has the power to make such changes, and that in the exercise of this power it may make such provision respecting the property and obligations of the corporation as it may deem equitable or proper, and that its action in this respect is conclusive. It is also well settled that when the boundaries of such corporation are changed, either by forming a new corporation out of the territory of the original one or by transferring a portion of the territory to another corporation, in the absence of any provision on [418]the subject, the old corporation, will be entitled to all the property and be solely liable for all the obligations, and that the territory taken therefrom will not be entitled to any of the corporate property or liable for any of the obligations of the old corporation. (Town of Depere v. Town of Bellevue, 31 Wis. 120; 11 Am. Rep. 602; Laramie Co. v. Albany Co., 92 U. S. 307; Dillon on Municipal Corporations, sec. 188.)