Johnson v. Boundary School Dist. No. 101, 138 Idaho 331

Summary

The Supreme Court of Idaho reversed dismissal of a complaint challenging a school district lease-purchase agreement, levy, and election notice. The court held that the election-contest bond requirement applied only to the claim challenging the election notice, not to the declaratory judgment claims concerning the agreement and levy. It also held that the bond requirement was not jurisdictional and could be filed after the court determined the required amount.

Holdings

1. Counts I and II were declaratory judgment claims challenging the validity of the lease-purchase agreement and the use of levy proceeds, not challenges to the election procedures or the election result. The election-contest bond requirement was therefore irrelevant to those counts.
2. Idaho Code section 34-2001A governed the challenge to the school district levy-election notice because it was the more recent and specifically applicable statute governing contests of school district elections.
3. Idaho Code sections 34-2001A and 34-2008 did not require the election-contest cost bond to be filed within the same forty-day period required for filing the complaint. The bond could be filed after the clerk or district judge determined the bond amount.
4. Failure to file the election-contest bond within the forty-day complaint period was not jurisdictional and did not require dismissal of the action.
5. The plaintiffs had standing to challenge the school district’s use of district income to carry out the lease-purchase agreement.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the plaintiffs’ constitutional and declaratory claims concerning the lease-purchase agreement and use of levy proceeds were election contests subject to the statutory cost-bond requirement.
2. Whether Idaho Code sections 34-2001A and 34-2008 required the election-contest bond to be filed within forty days after the election.
3. Whether failure to timely file the bond was jurisdictional and required dismissal.
4. Whether the plaintiffs had standing to challenge the lease-purchase agreement and levy.
5. Whether Idaho Code section 34-2001A, rather than section 33-408, governed the challenge to the school district levy-election notice.

Disposition

reversed_and_remanded