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140 N.C. 270

52 S.E 781

Hyatt v. Dehart.

Supreme Court of North Carolina

Decided December 12, 1905

Supreme Court of North Carolina · decided 1905-12-12

ActxoN by H. E. Hyatt against S. A. DeHart, Tax Collector, and others, pending in the Superior Court of Swain, and heard by Judge Q-. S. Ferguson, at Chambers in Murphy, September 20, 1905. Erom an order dissolving the restraining order, the plaintiff appealed.

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“Ordinarily the findings of fact by the judge below are conclusive on appeal. While this is not true as to injunction cases, in which we look into and review the evidence on appeal, still there is the presumption always that the judgment and proceedings below are correct and the burden is upon the appellant to assign and show error.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including Plott v. . Comrs.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1905-12-12

How this case has been cited

Cited by 13 later decisions — most recently November 1953

12 state decisions

40190519101920193019401950decided

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 →

Clark, C. J.

¶1 This is an appeal from an order dissolving a restraining order, which had been granted until the hearing, *271 against a tax levied by virtue of an election, authorizing a special school tax, held by virtue of section 72, chapter 4, Laws 1901, as amended by section 24, chapter 435, Laws 1903. The evidence was conflicting. The judge found as facts that one-fourth of the freeholders of the district signed the petition for the election and that a majority of the voters voted in favor of the special tax, and that while there were some irregularities in holding the election and recording the result, they were not of such nature as to vitiate the election or make the collection of the tax illegal.

¶2 Ordinarily, the findings of fact by the judge below are conclusive on appeal. While this is not true as to injunction cases, in which we look into and review the evidence on appeal, still there is the presumption always that the judgment and proceedings below are correct and the burden is upon the appellant to assign and show error; and looking into, the affidavits in this case we cannot say there was error below.

¶3 The general rule is that when the injunctive relief .sought is not merely ancillary to the principal relief demanded in the action, but is itself the main relief, the court will not dissolve the injunction, but will continue it to the hearing. Marshall v. Commissioners, 89 N. C., 103. But when the injunction is against the prosecution of enterprises which tend to develop the resources of the country, an injunction to the hearing will ordinarily be refused. Walton v. Mills, 86 N. C., 280. Certainly, therefore, an injunction to the hearing should be denied or dissolved on the state of facts here found when the relief sought will seriously interfere with the education of the young. There can doubtless be a speedy trial of the disputed issues of fact before a jury, and in the meantime the schools should not be interrupted when the weight of the testimony is found by the judge to be as above stated.

¶4 Affirmed.

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