Revell v. Mayor, etc., of Annapolis

In Maryland, the legislature’s power to enact legislation regarding the state’s public school system included the power to enact laws that required cities to issue school bonds to fund their local schools. The Maryland legislature enacted a law allowing school commissioners to use bonds to fund Annapolis schools. The law required the city of Annapolis to issue $10,000 worth of bonds and did not require voters to consent to the bonds. Members of the Annapolis school commissioner building committee (the building-committee members) (plaintiffs) sought funding under this law to purchase a plot of land to erect a school. Representatives of the city of Annapolis (defendants) refused to issue the requested bonds, claiming the state of Maryland did not have the power to compel a city to issue bonds, which they claimed was a purely local issue not involving the general interest of the state of Maryland. The building-committee members sued the representatives of the city of Annapolis in state trial court, asking the court to compel the city to issue the bonds. Representatives of the city of Annapolis pleaded a demurrer, asking for the case to be dismissed and asserting that the building-committee members were not entitled to legal relief as a matter of law. The lower court granted the representatives of Annapolis’s demurrer and dismissed the lawsuit. The building-committee members appealed the trial court’s decision to the Maryland Court of Appeals.