Opinion
Decided June 25, 1936.
The provision of P. L., c. 119, s. 50 that the town school district shall take the property of a dissolved district within the territory of the town applies to the assets of the former Boscawen Special School District which after being made a part of the Penacook Union School District was withdrawn therefrom; and its assets belong to the single school district comprising the town of Boscawen.
PETITION, under P. L., c. 119, s. 45, by certain taxpayers of Boscawen, for the apportionment of the assets of the Penacook Union School District. The court (Sawyer, C. J.) transferred without ruling the questions whether the part of Boscawen formerly constituting the Boscawen Special School District, in 1909 made a part of the said union district, and in 1935 withdrawn from it, "is now or may become a corporate entity", and whether it "became or may become a part of the Boscawen Town School District."
Robert W. Upton and Laurence I. Duncan (Mr. Duncan orally), for the petitioners.
Willoughby A. Colby, for Penacook Union School District.
The Boscawen Special School District was dissolved as a corporation when its territory became a part of the Penacook Union School District. Laws 1909, c. 239, s. 3. The act under authority of which the same territory was withdrawn (Laws 1935, c. 313) made no specific provision either for its reincorporation as a special district or for its union with any existing district. To adopt the suggestion that the legislature has created a corporate entity by implication, would be to depart from well established canons of construction. The general statute (P. L., c. 119, s. 50) providing that the town district shall take the property of the part of the dissolved district within the territory of the town is regarded as applicable. The reasonable construction is that the legislature intended that the policy of the general laws (P. L., c. 119, s. 1) should operate in this instance and that the whole town of Boscawen should constitute a single district.
Case discharged.