982 SCHOOL DIsTs. Nos. 41 ET AL. v. BD. EDUCATION.. [177 SCHOOL DISTRICTS Nos. 41 ET AL. V. POPE COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION. Opinion delivered July 9, 1928. 1. STATUTEWHEN EFFECTIVE.--An act of the Legislature which contained no emergency clause did not go'into effect until 90 days after adjournment of the Legislature. 2. STATUTES—PROSPECTIVE OPER.ATION.—A statute should have a prospective operation only, unless its terms show clearly a legislative intention that it should operate retrospectively. • 3. SCHOOLS ' AND SCHOOL bISTRICTS—DISSOLUTION OF. DISTRICTS.—Aets 1927, p. 495, c. 144, authorizing county boards of education to . • dissolve school districts whose average daily attendance does not exceed. 15 pupils, having no retroactive effect, did not authorize the dissolution of districts because of the too small daily attendance beford thelaw became operative. APPEAL AND ERROR—WAIVER OF AFFIDAVIT FOR A PPEAL.—Failure to file an affidavit for appeal from an order of a county board of education to the circuit court was waived by the appearance of the: county board and trial of the cause without raising the objection. Appeal from Pope Circuit Court; J. T. Bullock, •Judge ; reversed. Hays, Priddy & Rorex and Robert Bailey, for appel-Ward & Caudle, for appellee. KIRBY, J. This appeal is from a judgment of affirm-ance by the . circuit court of the action of the county board of- edircafiZir of Pope County, consolidating certain school districts in said county, the three causes being instituted separately and consolidated for a hearing by the board of education. The proceedings were instituted under the authority of act 144 of the Acts of 1927, and no question is raised challenging the regularity of the procedure. • The board of 'education dissolved the districts upon proof of the record of attendance, made before the act was passed, during the school year ending June 30, 1927. Appellants insist that the board was without authority, under the provisions of act 144 of 1927, enacted without the emergency clause, to dissolve the districts upon proof of the record of the average daily attendance below the
ARK.] . SCHOOL DISTS. Nos. :41 ET AL: 1). BD. EDUCATION. 983 requirements of said act, made before it became •effec-- live, and as show.n by the record of attendance for the school year ending June 30, 1927, and this contention must be sustained. • Section 1 of •said act provides : "The county board of education of any county shall have the .discretionarY power to dissolve any school district -whose : length . of school term shall not be one hundred twenty -days in any school year, or whose average daily attendancd does not exceed fifteen pupils, and attach the territory so dissolved to adjacent school district or districts * * *." The act was approved on the 16th- day of March, 1927, but contained no emergency clause, and did not go into effect until 90 days after the adjournment of the Legislature on March 12, 1927, or until June . 12, 1927. Arkansas Tax Commission v. Moore, 103 Ark'. 48, 145 S. W. 1_99; St. Louis, Iron-Mountain ..fe SOu . . Railway Cos. v.. Roddy, 110 Ark. 161, 161 S. W. 156. • "A statute should have a prospective operation only. unless its terms show clearly a legislative intention that it should operate' retrospectively." Fayetteville B. ce L. Assn.. v. Bowlin, 63 Ark. 576, 39 S. W. 1047; • Blaók V. School District, 106 'Ark. 572, 173 S. , W. 1104. 'Certainly it was not the intention of the Legislature to give this law a • retroactive effect, there being . rio . expression of. an intention therein indicating that its operation should be other than prospective, and it accordingly furnished 'no authority for disSolution of the districts because of the too small daily attendance of pupils before the law becaine effective, and the'dourt erred in holding otherwise. • . • Appellee insists that • the appeal was riot properly taken from the decision or -order • Of the board . of education abolishing the districts,' to the circuit court, because no affidavit if or appeal; in accordance with the terms - .Of act 144 • of 1927, providing therefor, is shown in the . transcript. This question was notraised in the circuit court, however, by objection or any -motion. io dismiss the appeal, and Must be held to -have been waived by:the
984 . -[177 appearance of appellee therein and the trial of the cause. Wulff v. Davis, 108 Ark. 291, 157 S. W . 384; Ark. Brick & Tile Co. v. Crabtree, 172 Ark. 752, 290 S. W. 361. The judgment is accordingly reversed, and the cause remanded to the circuit court, with directions to reverse the order of the county board of education abolishing and consolidating the said dfstricts, land for any further necessary procedure according to law and not inccin-sistent with this opinion.
You are being directed to the most recent version of the statute which may not be the version considered at the time of the judgment.