Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 1).pdf/53

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GOOSE RIVER BK. v. WILLOW LAKE SCH’L TOWNSH’P.
29

206; Thomas v. Richmond, 12 Wall. 349; Argenti v. San Francisco, 16 Cal. 255; City of Litchfield v. Ballou, 114 U. S. 190, 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 820. See, also, Tube Works Co. v. City of Chamberlain, 37 N. W. Rep. 762; S. C. 5 Dak. 54 This is particularly true in a case like the one at bar, where no person can teach without the certificate, without being actually or legally in collusion with local officers to defeat a wise and salutary statute enacted as a barrier against the employment of unqualified teachers. The person who teaches without the certificate has violated the letter and the spirit of the law. The wrong done is without remedy. The people who have thus had this barrier torn from about them have no redress. Shall the wrong-doer be compensated for aiding the school township officers in breaking down this barrier, thus depriving the people of the protection of this important law? In this connection the language of the court in Thomas v. Richmond, 12 Wall. 349, is very applicable: "The issuing of bills as a currency by such a corporation, without authority, is not only contrary to positive law, but, being ultra vires, is an abuse of the public franchises which have been conferred upon it, and the receiver of the bill, being chargeable with notice of the wrong, is in pari delicto with the officers, and should have no remedy, even for money had and received, against the corporation upon which he has aided in inflicting the wrong. The protection of public corporations from such unauthorized acts of their officers and agents is a matter of public policy, in which the whole community is concerned, and those who aid in such transactions must do so at their peril." In City of Litchfield v. Ballou, 114 U. S. 190, 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 820, the same court said: "The money received on the bonds having been expended with other funds raised by taxation in erecting the water works of the city, to impose the amount thereof as a lien upon these public works would be equally a violation of the constitutional prohibition as to raise against the city an implied assumpsit for money had and received. The holders of the bonds and agents of the city are participes crimints in the act of violating that prohibition, and equity will no more raise a resulting trust in favor of the bondholders than the law will raise an implied assumpsit against a public policy so