McCormick v. Burt

Citations

• 95 Ill. 263
• 1880 Ill. LEXIS 175

Syllabus

<p>1. Public officers—whether liable in damages for mistakes. Public officers to whom matters may be submitted for their determination, the consideration of which requires an exercise of their deliberative judgments, are not answerable in damages for mere errors of judgment unaccompanied with malice or bad faith.</p> <p>2. Same—school directors—suspension of pupils. School directors are invested by the statute with certain discretionary power in regard to the suspension or expulsion of scholars from the public schools. In the exercise of that power they must deliberate and judge and decide, and if they but err in their judgments, without malice, or intention to wrong the scholar, they can not be held liable in a suit for damages for their action in that regard.</p> <p>3. Pleading—of the declaration in action against school directors for suspension of scholar. In an action on the case against school directors for suspending the plaintiff, a scholar in one of the public schools of which the defendants were directors, from all the rights and privileges of such school until he should express a willingness to comply with a rule of the school which required such scholars as might be in attendance at the time set apart for reading the hi ble in the school by the teacher to lay aside their books and keep quiet during that exercise, it was held to be a fatal defect in the declaration that it omitted to aver that in directing the suspension of the scholar from the privileges of the school the directors acted either wantonly or maliciously.</p>