Braunlin v. Board of Education
Braunlin v. Board of Education
Opinion of the Court
It is contended in behalf of the plaintiffi however, thatjpnder the protection of §8543 GC he is a bona fide purchaser of this property and had no knowledge of the existence, of the deed or the rights of the board to the property. We are unable to give the plaintiff the benefit of that section under the facts as developed by the evidence in this case. The school house had been used until September, 1925. There had been, considerable controversy between the plaintiff’s , grantor and the board, and those controversies were all of public knowledge. The property is a school building and it had not been vacant and unused as a school building long enough to take away from it the appearance of a building of that kind. A school building, like any other public building, when located on land about to be purchased, is a signal of danger to the prospective buyer and notice to him to stop and inquire as to why a building like that is allowed on what purports to be private property if no right thereto in the public appears of record.
From the language used by the Court of Common Pleas in its judgment entry it is apparent that that court merely found that the board of education was entitled to the possession of this lot at that time, and that is the conclusion of this court. As before observed, the evidence establishes that in 1925, by reason of a centralized school building having been constructed in Green Township, the defendant board ceased using the property in controversy but they did not abandon it at that time. We will not undertake to say that under the provisions of §7330-1 GC the board could not abandon the building until the expiration of four years from the tipie it was first vacated. We have held, however, that under circumstances similar to those appearing in the instant case a board of education has a reasonable time within which to finally determine what disposition should be made
The petition of the plaintiff is dismissed on ihe ground that this court finds that at the time of the bringing of the action the defendant board was entitled to the possession of the property described in the petition,
Decree for defendant.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.