School Directors v. McBride

1. Though school directors should keep a record and their acts there appear, yet their unrecorded acts are not void. To record them is a duty to their constituents, but contractors with them cannot object to them merely on account of their not being recorded. 2. Though a contract under seal be so defectively executed that it could not be enforced, yet if it be performed the dependent covenant cannot be repudiated. 3. In pursuance of a resolution of a board of school directors, the president of the board as such, entered into an article of agreement on its behalf, under seal, with a person who contracted under seal to erect a school-house: it was Held, that after the house was built and the consideration stipulated nearly all paid, an action of covanant in the name of the school directors lay against the contractor on account of defects in the materials and construction of the building.

Error to the Common Pleas of Armstrong county. This was an appeal entered 2d September, 1851, from the judgment of a justice of the peace, in a suit by The School Directors of Sugar Creek v. John McBride. In June, 1851, this suit was brought against John McBride to recover damages for not building a school-house according to contract, and judgment recovered for $100 and costs, from which the defendant appealed to the Common Pleas of Armstrong county. Narr. in covenant. Pleas non est factum, covenants performed absque hoc. 25th March, tried in Court, and verdict for defendant. 19th September, 1853, judgment on the verdict. At a meeting of the board of school directors, 22d September, 1849, the directors, being all present, unanimously authorized and directed Thomas Templeton, president of the hoard, to enter into an article on behalf of the directors, with John McBride for the building of a school-house in sub-district No. 12, in said township. In pursuance of those instructions, Thomas Templeton, as president, and on behalf of the board of directors, made an agreement .in writing under seal with the said John McBride, dated the 22d September, 1849, by which John McBride undertook to build for the plaintiffs a school-house, in said sub-district No. 12, as specified therein, and to finish it in May, 1850, for which the directors were to pay him $220. The article was lost, but it was testified that it was signed by the president of the board of school directors, and by McBride, with a seal to each name. McBride built the^house, and the directors having paid him, from time to time, the whole amount of the consideration, except about $20, brought this suit to recover damages, both on account of defective materials and defective work. ’ Evidence, was given on both sides as to the materials and workmanship. The Court instructed the jury that the recorded minutes of the school directors were the only evidence of their acts, and that their acts, as a board, could not be proved by parol. The charge was as follows:— “ As we understand the Supreme Court in Cline v. The Directors of Wayne, the recorded resolutions of the board are the evidence of their acts as a board. There being no such resolution shown in this case authorizing Thomas Templeton to contract with any one for the erection of this school-house, the directors were not a party to the agreement, and would not be liable to be sued on it. “ Inasmuch as the directors, if they were defendants, could successfully defeat the' action of covenant, we see no reason why the defendant in this case cannot. say he is not liable to be sued in covenant by a plaintiff who was not a party to the contract. The verdict must therefore be for defendant.” Such instruction was assigned for error.