Rural Special School District No. 85 v. Tatum

HABT, J., (after stating the facts). The decree of the chancellor was right. In Special School District No. 79 v. Special School District No. 2, 121 Ark. 581, the court, following Crow v. Special School District No. 2, 102 Ark. 401, held that rural special school district can only be established out of territory not already incorporated in a special school district, and that such district when once established cannot be dismembered by including a portion of its territory within the boundaries of another rural special school district. The court further held that the law did not contemplate that there should be more than one election ordered at a time for the establishment of a particular territory into a rural special school district, nor that, after a petition had been presented for the organization of such special district with the map showing the territory asked to be included therein, any other petition for the inclusion of any such territory into another rural special school district should be considered by the county judge, nor an election ordered therein until the election ordered upon the petition first presented should have been held. It is contended by counsel for the plaintiff that this decision does not control the instant case because the petition for the formation of Single School District No. 85 was filed before the petitions in the other districts were filed. This does not make any difference. It is not the filing of the petition, but the presentation thereof and the judgment of the court therein which closes the door to the presentation of other petitions until the election provided for in the petition first acted on shall have been held. This was the construction placed upon the decision in Rural Special School District No. 17 v. Special School District No. 56, 123 Ark. 570. In the latter case the court, referring to the former, said that the court had recently held that the territory embraced within a petition for the creation of a new single school district cannot, after the election has been ordered, be invaded by an attempt to create another district "out of a part of that territory. It follows that the decree must be affirmed.