Opinion ID: 6496687
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Atextual Zone of Interests Test

Text: ¶55 Let's start with a point of agreement. This court's determination that a person's injured interest must fall within the relevant law's zone of interests is disconnected from the legislative text. We first adopted the zone of interests limitation in 1975, styling it after the United States Supreme Court's contemporaneous interpretation of the federal Administrative Procedure Act. See WED I, 69 Wis. 2d at 10 (citing Ass'n of Data Processing Serv. Orgs., Inc. v. Camp, 397 U.S. 150, 153 (1970) & Barlow v. Collins, 397 U.S. 159 (1970)). But even in 1975, the two statutes being interpreted meaningfully differed:  The state statute read: any person aggrieved by a[n agency] decision . . . and directly affected thereby shall be entitled to judicial review thereof, Wis. Stat. § 227.16 (1973-74);  The federal statute read: A person suffering legal wrong because of agency action, or adversely affected or aggrieved by agency action within the meaning of a relevant 4 Nos. 2019AP299 & 2019AP534.jjk statute, is entitled to judicial review thereof, 5 U.S.C. § 702 (emphasis added). ¶56 From the latter's underlined text, it is evident why the United States Supreme Court limited federal judicial review to only those injuries arguably within the zone of interests to be protected or regulated by the [relevant] statute. Ass'n of Data Processing, 397 U.S. at 153. Wisconsin Stat. § 227.16 contained no similar language which would justify this court's imposition of an identical limitation. To this day, Wisconsin statutory law omits its federal counterpart's within the meaning of a relevant statute language, stating instead that any person or agency whose substantial interests are adversely affected by a determination of an agency shall be entitled to judicial review of the decision.1 The only change in Wisconsin law since our 1975 decision relevant here is that the statute now includes the words substantial interests. ¶57 In short, I agree that the zone of interests limitation lacks a textual basis in the otherwise broad cause of action the Wisconsin legislature affords those affected by agency decisions; in the appropriate case, perhaps this court should revisit it. Here, though, no party asks us to do so, making this case an inappropriate vehicle for such an overhaul. 1 This simplified formulation combines Wis. Stat. § 227.53 (any person aggrieved by a decision specified in [§] 227.52 shall be entitled to judicial review of the decision) and Wis. Stat. § 227.01(9)'s definition of a person aggrieved (a person or agency whose substantial interests are adversely affected by a determination of an agency). See also Wis. Stat. § 227.52 (Administrative decisions which adversely affect the substantial interests of any person, whether by action or inaction, whether affirmative or negative in form, are subject to review . . . .). 5 Nos. 2019AP299 & 2019AP534.jjk Deciding this issue, when no one asked us to do so, both deprives our deliberations of analysis refined in the fires of adversarial litigation and unfairly surprises the parties. See, e.g., City of Janesville v. CC Midwest, Inc., 2007 WI 93, ¶68, 302 Wis. 2d 599, 734 N.W.2d 428 (Ann Walsh Bradley, J., concurring). Still, the majority heedlessly marches forward. ¶58 Though the majority opinion pays homage to a textually-driven analysis,2 its analysis is anything but based in the text. Removing the atextual zone of interests limitation on Wis. Stat. ch. 227 standing should make judicial review easier to obtain. But the majority manages to do the opposite by: (1) merely applying the same restrictive zone of interests test under a label only superficially matching the text; and (2) using the nominally textual critique of zone of interests as cover for the introduction of a new, more restrictive, and still atextual, substantive criteria limitation.