Montana Attorney General Opinion 15-277

Opinion No. 277 Schools-Trustees-Special l\(eetings, Notice of. HI"LD: Since Sec. ]006 does lIot pro- vide the manner of serviee of notice of a special meeting of the board of trus- tees of a school district, personal serv- ice is required. July 20, 1933. You request ad\'ice on the question of legality of a notice of a special meet- ing of the hoard of trustees of a school district, such notice being mailed at lIoon Thursday for a meeting called to be held at S:OO o'clock P. M., the fol- lowing Saturday. Section 1006, R. C. l\1., 1921, provides in part as follows: • .. .. A special meeting of the board may be held upon the call of the chairman or any two members of the board; at least forty- eight hours' written notice shall be given to each member of the board of any special meetings. and no business transacted by the hoard shall be valid unless transacted at a regular or spe- cial meeting thereof." The rule is that a statute requiring that notice ~hall be given. but which is ~i1ent as to the manner of gh'ing such notice, contemplates personal service thereof. (Long v. Chronicle Pub. Co. 228 Pac. SiS (CaL); Weyerhaeuser '1'imber CO. Y. Pierce County, 233: Pac. !l22 (Wash.) ; Clinton Y. E1c1er, (Wyo.) 2ii, Pac. 968.) Notice proYided for in Section 9iSO specifi(:all~' relates to matters in liti- gation in the courts aml we do not think applies generally, and whether it does or not, it could not be said there is any "regular communication hy mail" between a postoffice and a party resid- ing some distance therefrom who gets his mail but once a week. 'Vhen notice is required to be gh'en a certain number of days, the rule is well established that the day the notice is given shall be excluded in comput- ing the number of days. (R. C. 10iOi). It has heen held by our Supreme Court and many others that the law does not take notice of fractions or parts of a day. (See Kelly,·. Independent Pub. Co .. 45 Mont. 127, allll O'Brien Y. Quinn. R5 Mont. 441). But that these rulings would be applied in construing a stat- ute that pro\'ides a notice of a giYen number of hours, is doubtful. III any eYent, as Section 1006 does not provide the manner of service, it is our opinion that per:,;ona1 sen'ice would be. required.