Opinion ID: 1592917
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Failure to make timely award.

Text: Sec. 32.08 (6) (b), Stats., requires the condemnation commission to make and file a written award with the clerk of court, specifying the property taken and the amount of the award, within ten days after the hearing. In this case the five-day hearing concluded on March 27, 1970, and the award was filed June 19, 1970. Appellant contends that failure to file the award within the ten-day limitation, is, in effect, jurisdictional and that the commission has lost jurisdiction to make an award unless it does so within the time prescribed by statute. We do not agree. The effect of a late filing of a decision, order, or award of a state agency, pursuant to a statutory requirement, has been before this court and such statutory periods have been held to be directory rather than jurisdictional. In Muskego-Norway C. S. J. S. D. v. W. E. R. B. (1967), 32 Wis. 2d 478, 485c, 145 N. W. 2d 680, 147 N. W. 2d 541, 151 N. W. 2d 84, 151 N. W. 2d 617, it is stated: In State v. Industrial Comm. [(1940), 233 Wis. 461, 289 N. W. 769] this court considered the problem of whether a time limitation on an administrative agency was mandatory or directory. The court stated a guiding criterion as follows: `. . . [A] statute prescribing the time within which public officers are required to perform an official act is merely directory, unless it denies the exercise of power after such time, or the nature of the act, or the statutory language, shows that the time was intended to be a limitation.' The statute here under consideration makes no provisions for any consequences resulting from failure to timely make and file the award. Furthermore, in this case, we are unable to see how the appellant was in any way prejudiced by the late filing of the award. While the late filing of an award by a condemnation commission is not to be condoned, it does not necessarily operate to deprive the condemnation commission of jurisdiction. Appellant's last contention is that the trial court erred in excluding an intradepartmental memorandum as not relevant to the issues of good faith negotiation and submission of a good faith jurisdictional offer. The memorandum contains suggestions by the prior appraiser (Lieberman) that if condemnation were to occur emphasis should be placed on the value of the land paid by appellant and also that it would be advisable to find experts to testify to certain valuations of the land. Appellant suggests that Gutschenritter and Mayo used the price paid by appellant, ten years prior to the taking, as the principal criterion in appraising the lands. However, appellant has failed to demonstrate that the memorandum was relied upon by Gutschenritter or Mayo in their appraisals. Absent such a showing, it was not an abuse of discretion for the trial court to refuse the exhibits. By the Court. Judgment and order affirmed.