Opinion
No. 28408.
May 20, 1952.
James A. Finch, and Finch Finch, all of Cape Girardeau, for relators.
W. Osler Statler, Jackson, for respondents.
This is an original proceeding in mandamus against the officers and members of the Board of Directors of Liberty School District No. 14 of Cape Girardeau County to compel said board to order an election under Section 165.300 RSMo 1949, V.A.M.S., to determine whether or not a portion of Liberty School District No. 14 should be annexed to Consolidated District No. 5 of Cape Girardeau County. Relators are residents and qualified voters of Liberty School District No. 14.
The respondents waived the issuance of the alternative writ and agreed that relators' petition serve in its stead. In their return respondents admitted the facts pleaded in the petition, and made additional averments, to which return relators demurred. We therefore look to the facts well pleaded in the petition and return for the facts of the case. State ex rel. Buckley v. Thompson, 323 Mo. 248, 19 S.W.2d 714; State ex rel. Donnell v. Osburn, 347 Mo. 469, 147 S.W.2d 1065, 136 A.L.R. 667.
Liberty School District No. 14 of Cape Girardeau County, Missouri, is a common school district organized and existing under the laws of the State of Missouri, and adjoins Consolidated District No. 5. The latter is a consolidated school district organized and existing under the laws of the State of Missouri.
On June 19, 1951, a petition signed by twenty-nine qualified voters of Liberty School District No. 14 of Cape Girardeau was filed with the Board of Directors of said district alleging that said petitioners desired that a portion of said district be annexed to Consolidated District No. 5 of Cape Girardeau County for school purposes, and praying that an election be called in accordance with the provisions of Sections 165.300 and 165.200 of the Revised Statutes of 1949, V.A.M.S., to determine whether said annexation should be made. The portion of Liberty School District No. 14 which petitioners desired to be annexed to Consolidated District No. 5 was described in said petition. No election for such purpose had been held within a period of two years prior to the filing of the petition. The portion of Liberty School District No. 14 which would remain in said district if the portion of the district sought to be annexed to Consolidated District No. 5 was actually annexed thereto, would contain thirty persons under twenty-one years of age, but less than thirty children of school age. Said remaining portion of Liberty School District would contain property with assessed valuation of more than thirty thousand dollars ($30,000). Respondents refused to order said election.
In this court the parties have filed the following stipulation (caption and signatures omitted):
"It is stipulated by and between the relators, by their undersigned attorneys, and the respondents, by their undersigned attorney, that if the term `thirty (30) children' as used in Section 165.300, Revised Statutes of Missouri, 1949, means children of all ages, including those from a few months old to twenty-one (21) years, then relators are entitled to their writ of mandamus, but if the term `thirty (30) children' means and is intended to mean children of school age, then relators are not entitled to the writ of mandamus."
Section 165.300 RSMo 1949, V.A.M.S., provides for the annexation of school districts, or parts thereof, to city, town, consolidated or village districts, and prescribes the procedure necessary to accomplish same. A limitation upon the right to annex a part of a district is found in paragraph three of said section, as follows: "that portion of the district remaining must contain within its limits thirty children and thirty thousand dollars assessed valuation, or thirty children and nine square miles of territory."
The case turns on the meaning of the term "thirty children." Relators contend that the general assembly intended by the use of said words to include all persons residing in said district under the age of twenty-one years. On the other hand, respondents contend that the word "children", as used in said statute, means children of school age, as established by Section 164.030 RSMo 1949, V.A.M.S., wherein school districts are directed to enumerate "all persons over six and under twenty years of age".
The term "child" or "children" has a variety of meanings. We speak of an infant, a child or youth. In its widest sense, the term "child" means an offspring of either sex and of any age. The word is so used and understood in statutes of descent and distribution, and when used in devising property by will. Under statutes, the term "child" is frequently synonymous with the word "minor". Even the term "infant" has this meaning, for we speak of contracts entered into by infants, and when thus used we mean minors. However, popular conception would infer a person of tender years.
In Pittsburg, Ft. W. C. Ry. Co. v. Vining's Adm'r, 27 Ind. 513, 92 Am.Dec. 269, the court held that the word "child" could not be held to include a minor who had assumed the relation of responsibility as head of a family.
In London Guaranty Accident Co. v. Morris, 156 Ill.App. 533, it was held that, under the common law and the factory statute there under consideration, the word "child" meant a person under the age of puberty. The same ruling appears in Blackburn v. State of Ohio, 22 Ohio St. 102, where the court was construing a statute classifying females subject to rape.
In Missouri-Kansas-Texas R. Co. v. Canada, 130 Okl. 171, 265 P. 1045, 59 A.L.R. 743, the court held that the word "children", as used in Section 824, C.O.S. 1921, 12 Okla.St.Ann. sec. 1053, was not equivalent to the word "minor", but was limited to such children as were dependent upon their parents for support.
In Citizens' Bank of Lancaster v. Foglesong, 326 Mo. 581, 31 S.W.2d 778, it was held that a power given a widow, a life tenant under a will, to sell the property of the estate for the support of herself and children, did not authorize a sale for the support of children, including a minor child, who had left the parental home.
It will thus be seen that the word "children" has no certain meaning, and is subject to interpretation.
In determining the meaning of words used in the statute which have no certain meaning, the court may look to the subject matter of the Act, the object to be accomplished, and the consequences of any proposed construction. School District No. 61 v. McFarland, 154 Mo.App. 411, 134 S.W. 673; Boll v. Condie-Bray Glass Paint Co., 321 Mo. 92, 11 S.W.2d 48; State ex rel. and to Use of Tadlock v. Mooneyham, 212 Mo.App. 573, 253 S.W. 1098; Joplin Supply Co. v. West, 149 Mo.App. 78, 130 S.W. 156; Betz v. Columbia Tel. Co., 224 Mo.App. 1004, 24 S.W.2d 224; Spurlock v. Wallace, 204 Mo.App. 674, 218 S.W. 890; State ex inf. Collins v. St. Louis-San Francisco R. Co., 238 Mo. 605, 142 S.W. 279; Bragg City Special Road District v. Johnson, 323 Mo. 990, 20 S.W.2d 22, 66 A.L.R. 1053; Straughan v. Meyers, 268 Mo. 580, 187 S.W. 1159; Glaser v. Rothschild, Mo. Sup., 120 S.W. 1.
In State ex inf. Kamp ex rel. Rodgers v. Pretended Consolidated School Dist. No. 1 of Montgomery County, 359 Mo. 639, 223 S.W.2d 484, 488, the court said: "The meaning of statutes and particularly the meaning of our school statutes may not be found in a single sentence but in all their parts and their relation to the end in view or to the general purpose."
Words and clauses in different parts of a statute must be read in a sense which harmonizes with the subject matter and general purpose of the statute. Dysart v. City of St. Louis, 321 Mo. 514, 11 S.W.2d 1045, 62 A.L.R. 762; Betz v. Columbia Tel. Co., 224 Mo.App. 1004, 24 S.W.2d 224.
In Chapter 165 RSMo 1949, V.A.M.S., is found the school law of Missouri providing for the organization, consolidation and alterations in the boundaries by annexation of all classes of school districts. The sections dealing with each class provide for the minimum number of children that an organized district must contain, and a limit on the number of children that must remain in a divided district or territory after an annexation. In dealing with common school districts and with the organization of city, town and consolidated districts, the statutes imposing said limitations refer to "pupils of school age," "persons of school age," or "children of school age," Sections 165.163, 165.167, 165.170, 165.177, 165.190, 165.280, and 165.287; while in Sections 165.300, 165.520, and 165.523 the word "children" is used.
Section 165.300 appears in that part of Chapter 165 RSMo 1949, V.A.M.S., dealing with city, town and consolidated districts. and provides for the annexation of school districts, or parts thereof, to adjoining districts. Section 165.520 appears in that part of Chapter 165 which deals with school districts in cites having more than 75,000 and less than 500,000 inhabitants. Said section provides for the annexation of districts, or parts thereof, to adjoining city school districts. Section 165.523 provides for annexation by a city school district of adjoining districts, or parts thereof, where there has been an extension of the boundaries of the city.
Relators argue that by the use of the word "children" in Section 165.300, instead of "children of school age," as used in the preceding sections, the General Assembly intended to permit the annexation of territory to a city, town, consolidated or village district, without regard to the number of persons of school age which would remain in the district from which said territory was taken. Relators would have us construe the word "children", as used in said section, as equivalent to the word "minors" or "infants".
Under Section 457.010 RSMo 1949, V.A.M.S., "minors" are defined as persons under the age of twenty-one years. An "infant", as that term is used in law, means a person under the age of twenty-one years. 43 C.J.S., Infants, § 1, page 49. On the other hand, respondents contend that "thirty children" mean thirty persons of "school age". Persons of school age are, under Section 164.030 RSMo 1949, V.A.M.S., all persons over six and under twenty years of age.
The word "children" is not a word of art. It is not a technical word to which a fixed and definite meaning must be given, but is subject to construction in many instances, depending upon the circumstance of its use.
Chapter 165 RSMo 1949, V.A.M.S., deals with schools, and the manifest purpose of the Act is to provide efficient and adequate school facilities for the purpose of education. From experience we know that the persons most likely to make use of those facilities are children of certain ages. The General Assembly, recognizing this fact, has, by Section 164.030 RSMo 1949, V.A.M.S., required the enumeration in each school district of all persons over six and under twenty years of age. Such persons are children of school age within the meaning of the school laws, and it seems reasonable to suppose that the General Assembly, when it enacted the statute with which we are here concerned, had those children in mind. We are confirmed in this view when we consider the evident purpose of the provision under consideration. The manifest intent of the General Assembly, in providing that the portion of any school district remaining after an annexation should contain thirty children, was to make sure that there would be a sufficient number of school children left therein to justify the maintenance of a school in said territory. This purpose would not be accomplished if the thirty children necessary under the statute should be construed to include all children under the age of twenty-one years.
In our opinion, the words "thirty children" appearing in Section 165.300 RSMo 1949, V.A.M.S., should be construed to mean thirty children of school age.
The peremptory writ of mandamus should be and is hereby denied.
BENNICK, P. J., and RUDDY, J., concur.