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106 Wis. 475

State ex rel. Graff v. Steele

Wisconsin Supreme Court

Decided April 6, 1900

Wisconsin Supreme Court · decided 1900-04-06

S. Geiswold, Judge. This is an action of certiorari, brought by the relators, who are electors and taxpayers of school district No. 3 in tbe town of Pewaukee, Waukesha county, Wisconsin, against tbe supervisors of said town, tbe object of the action being to reverse the action of said supervisors in creating a new school district in said town out of portions of school districts Nos. 1, 2, and 3.

Relies on McNolty v. Board of School Directors · State ex rel. Foster v. Graham

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Reversed · Decided 1900-04-06

How this case has been cited

Cited by 7 later decisions — most recently October 1959

7 state decisions

30190019101920193019401950decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

"Winslow, J.

¶1The statute requires (sec. 418, Stats. 1898) that: “Whenever the town board shall contemplate an alteration of a school district they shall give at least five days, notice in writing to the clerk of tbe district or districts to be affected thereby, stating in such notice when and where they will be present to decide -upon such proposed alteration, and such clerk or clerks shall immediately notify the *477other members of the board.” It was held in State ex rel. Foster v. Graham, 60 Wis. 395, in accordance with plain reason, that the giving of this notice is a jurisdictional prerequisite to the making of the order, and that'it could not be waived.

¶2The statute requires in no uncertain terms that the board shall give the notice. Upon familiar principles the board can only act at a meeting duly held. Individual action will not suffice. McNolty v. School Directors, 102 Wis. 261. In the present case the board never met, and never authorized the giving of the notice; hence they had no jurisdiction to make the order establishing the new district. The defect being jurisdictional, the action may be reviewed by the courts. State ex rel. Foster v. Graham, supra.

¶3By the Court.— Judgment reversed, and action remanded with directions to reverse the action of the town board.

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