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69 Mich. 596

Hale v. Risley

Michigan Supreme Court

Decided April 24, 1888

Michigan Supreme Court · decided 1888-04-24

<p>Mandamus — Schools and school-districts — Employment of teacher not having proper certificate.</p> <p>1. Mandamus is a discretionary writ, and will be allowed only in furtherance of justice and upon a proper case presented. It will not be allowed where it is apparent that it is applied'for to gratify the spite of a private individual, nor where the relator has instigated, authorized, or approved the act complained of.</p> <p>2. The liability of a school-district to pay a teacher for services * 1 actually rendered has been maintained in the following cases: Stoclcdalev. Sehool-dist., 47 Mich. 226; Crane v. Sehool-dist., 61 Id. 299.1</p> <p>3. The general policy of the school law is that schools shall be taught by qualified teachers, but necessities may arise where this cannot be done; and when such necessity arises, the district is ’ authorized to employ a teacher who has not the proper certificate, if the school board are satisfied that he or she is otherwise qualified, and to pay such teacher out of the moneys belonging to the district, except the primary-school money and mill tax, which cannot be applied to that purpose.</p> <p>4. In this case the return (see statement of facts) is held to show such a necessity.</p>

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““Mandamus is a discretionary writ, and will be allowed only in furtherance of justice upon a proper case presented. It will not be alloAved Avhere it is apparent that it is applied for to gratify the spite of a private individual nor where the relator has instigated, authorized or approved of the act complained of.””

quoted by 1 later decision, including Donahue v. State ex rel. Seieroe

Relies on Stockdale v. School District No. Two · School District No. 8 v. Estes · School District No. 9 v. Brown

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1888-04-24

How this case has been cited

Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently July 1962

8 state decisions

40188818901900191019201930194019501960decided

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 →

Per Curiam.

¶1Mandamus is a discretionary writ, and will be allowed only in furtherance of justice upon a proper case presented. It will not be allowed where it is apparent that it is applied for to gratify the spite of a private individual, nor where the relator has instigated, authorized, or approved of the act complained of.

¶2The relator in this case was the moderator of the school-district, and presided at a school-district meeting where the act was authorized for which he now asks a mandamus to compel suit upon the assessor’s bond because such act, as he-*599alleges, was.unlawful. It does not appear by his petition, or from the return, that he entered any protest or objection, but declared the resolution carried.

¶3We are not prepared to say that the payment of the schoolteacher, under the circumstances, was unlawful. The liability of a school-district to pay a teacher for services actually rendered has been maintained by the following authorities: School-dist. v. Brown, 55 Vt. 61; School-dist. v. Estes, 13 Neb. 52 (13 N. W. Rep. 16); Stockdale v. School-dist., 47 Mich. 226 (10 N. W. Rep. 349); Crane v. School-dist., 61 Id. 299 (28 N. W. Rep. 105).

¶4The general policy of the school law is that schools shall be taught by qualified teachers, but necessities may arise where this cannot be done. A district may. be unable to find a qualified teacher. Where the employment of an unqualified teacher is a necessity, the school-district is authorized to-employ one who has not the proper certificate, if the school board are satisfied that the teacher is otherwise qualified, and to pay such teacher out of moneys.belonging to the district.. But the primary-school moneys and mill tax cannot be applied to that purpose.

¶5We think the return shows such a case of necessity, and the mandamus is denied, with costs.

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