Covell

Petitioners applied to the trial court for a writ of mandate requiring the respondent, as county superintendent of schools, to call an election for the determination of the question of establishing a high school district to be named Davis Joint Union High School District. Respondent answered the petition and after a hearing the application was denied. This appeal is from the judgment. A petition in due form was presented to the respondent praying for the formation of such high school district to be composed of four elementary school districts. Respondent found that the petition was signed by a majority of the registered electors of three of the districts, but that in one of them, Plainfield, there were fifty-four registered electors *Page 363 and that only twenty-seven of them had joined in the petition. She therefore refused to call an election to determine the question. Section 1728 of the Political Code provides: "Whenever a majority of the registered electors, residing in each of two or more contiguous school districts, having in the aggregate at least one hundred pupils in average daily attendance in the elementary schools of such districts, shall unite in a petition to the…

In their petition for a rehearing appellants state that the opinion filed herein does not dispose of their contention that the findings are insufficient to support the judgment.

The findings were considered in Covell v. Lee, 69 Cal. App. 1 [ 230 Pac. 208 ], and what is there said need not be repeated here. The finding there set out is necessarily decisive against the appellants and is sufficient to support the judgment. Since the petition did not contain the signatures of a majority of the registered electors of Plainfield district it was immaterial whether it was signed by a majority of the electors of other districts. (Phillips v. Stark, 65 Cal. App. 136 [ 223 Pac. 443 ].) The finding is not outside the issues, but it is responsive to the only issue raised by the pleadings.

The petition is denied.

A petition by appellants to have the cause heard in the supreme court, after judgment in the district court of appeal, was denied by the supreme court on April 16, 1925.

All the Justices concurred.

Petitioners applied to the trial court for a writ of mandate requiring the respondent, as county superintendent of schools, to call an election for the determination of the question of establishing a high school district to be named Davis Joint Union High School District. Respondent answered the petition and alter a hearing the application was denied. This appeal is from the judgment.

A petition in due form was presented to the respondent praying for the formation of such high school district to be composed of four elementary school districts. Respondent found that the petition was signed by a majority of the registered electors of three of the districts, but that in one of them, Plainfield, there were fifty-four registered electors *363 and that only twenty-seven of them had joined in the petition. She therefore refused to call an election to determine the question. Section 1728 of the Political Code provides: “Whenever a majority of the registered electors, residing in each of two or more contiguous school districts, having in the aggregate at least one hundred pupils in average daily attendance in the elementary schools of such districts, shall unite in a petition to the…