Opinion ID: 1936095
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Legality of highway order.

Text: Although the town board had the authority, in its discretion, to lay out the disputed access highway, its order laying out the highway is void because the town did not follow the precise procedure set out by the statutes and it, therefore, lost jurisdiction. It lost jurisdiction when it ordered the amounts assessed as advantages to Petranek to be filed with the town treasurer within sixty days of such order. Although sec. 80.13 (4), Stats., does not prescribe a precise time limit as to when the applicant for the laying out of a highway, as here, must pay the amounts assessed to him as advantages, the only requirement is that such advantages be paid prior to the filing of the order laying out the highway. Sec. 80.13 (4), Stats., provides as follows: (4) But the damages assessed by the supervisors shall in no case exceed the price stated in the affidavit of the applicant; upon laying out such highway, or in adding to the width of a former private way or road, they shall make and sign an order describing the same and file the same with the town clerk together with their award of damages, which order shall be recorded by said clerk; provided, that the amount assessed as advantages to the applicant shall be paid to the town treasurer before the order laying out such highway shall be filed. However, sec. 80.07 (1), Stats., does require a town board's action affecting a highway to be filed in ten days. This statute provides as follows: (1) When the supervisors lay out, alter, widen or discontinue any highway they shall make and sign an order therefor, incorporating therein a description of the highway and cause survey thereof to be made when necessary. The order shall be filed and recorded in the office of the town clerk, who shall note in the record the time of recording. The order together with the award of damages shall be so filed within 10 days after the date fixed by their notice or adjournment for deciding upon the application. In case the supervisors fail to file the order and award within the 10 days aforesaid they shall be deemed to have decided against the application. . . . It has long been held that the failure to comply with this statute results in the town board's loss of jurisdiction. [12] The determination of whether the Town of Hunter Board of Supervisors lost jurisdiction in the instant proceedings for failure to comply with sec. 80.07 (1), Stats., depends upon whether the ten-day time limitation therein stated may be properly applied to proceedings under sec. 80.13, which contains no such time limitation. The two statutes are intended to be complementary: First, sec. 80.07 (1), Stats., explicitly states that it applies to  any highway  which supervisors lay out, alter, widen or discontinue. As sec. 80.13 specifically permits supervisors to lay out such highway and add enough land to its width, it is clear that these statutes are to be read together and as this court has repeatedly held, the specific provision controls the more general. [13] Second, in State ex rel. Giblin v. Supervisors of the Town of Union, this court specifically applied the ten-day provision of sec. 80.07, Stats. (then sec. 1269, R. S. 1878), to the sec. 80.13 proceedings to lay out an access to landlocked property (then sec. 1275, R. S. 1878): The language of sec. 1269 is sufficiently broad to include a highway laid out pursuant to sec. 1275, and we have no doubt that the legislature intended to include therein such highways. [14] This court went on to hold that a delay beyond the ten days (over three months in Giblin ) was fatal to the validity of the highway in question. [15] The reasons for requiring strict compliance with sec. 80.07, Stats., have been stated by this court in the Giblin Case noted above and in Roberts v. Jeidy. [16] In Giblin, this court stated: . . . Were that the only statute on the subject, the courts might be compelled to hold that the applicant for the highway may take his own time to pay or refuse to pay the advantages assessed against him; thus keeping the persons whose lands the supervisors have determined to condemn to the public use in suspense for an indefinite period, as to whether their lands are ultimately to be taken or not, making the final result dependent upon the convenience or caprice of the applicant. That this uncertainty might and probably would interfere with the beneficial use of the land, and seriously embarrass the owner in his plans for the improvement and cultivation of his adjacent lands, is perfectly obvious. Besides, if the applicant delay more than thirty days after the determination of the supervisors to lay out the highway to pay such assessment so that the order may be filed and recorded, it is doubtful, to say the least, whether the owner of the land condemned could then appeal from such determination. It would be found difficult to strain the language of sec. 1276 so as to save in such case the right to appeal. [17] In Roberts, we stated: Strict compliance requires the filing of the award as well as the decision laying out the highway. In fact, the language of the statute makes them, in effect, one instrument and does so apparently for the reason that it is desirable that a person whose land is taken for highway purposes may know at one and the same time that his land is to be taken and how much it is proposed he shall have for the taking. One might very well oppose the taking of his land but also consider that if he were given adequate compensation therefor he would offer no objection to the proceeding. The process designed by the statute affords him the means of knowing simultaneously that his land is to be taken and what he is to be paid therefor and thereby avoids the necessity on his part to make two separate attacks upon the proceeding. [18] Because the town board's disputed order does not comply with the statutes, the defects are jurisdictional and we must, therefore, reverse the circuit court's order quashing appellant's writ of certiorari to review the order laying out the public highway. This jurisdictional defect in the Hunter town board's order was not brought to the attention of the trial court. The court mentioned the jurisdictional issue with respect to the absence of adequate minutes of the various hearings. The court also mentioned the petitioner's contention that there was no showing of actual payment of the advantages. But no mention was made concerning sec. 80.07, Stats., and its ten-day requirement, by either the appellant or by the trial court. Ordinarily, questions which are not properly presented to the trial court will not be considered for the first time on appeal. [19] However, this rule is not inflexible, and questions of jurisdiction have been held exceptions to the rule. [20] It is a rule of administration, not of power. [21] Here, since a jurisdictional question is presented, this court chooses to consider the issue here and holds that the failure to follow the statute is fatal to the town board's order. We make one more observation. The minutes of the town board's hearing on the petition to lay out a road over NSP property are clearly inadequate. While minutes may be kept by other than the town clerk, [22] the statute contemplates the taking, contemporaneously with the events of the meeting, faithful minutes of all the proceedings. [23] The minutes in the instant case were not recorded until several months after the hearings. They are inadequate and inaccurate, as evidenced by the fact that two of those alleged to be at the April 17, 1971, hearing were not there at all. Since the town board's order is invalid for lack of jurisdiction, it is not necessary for us to reach the question of the effect on the validity of that order of the inadequate and inaccurate board minutes. By the Court. Order reversed and cause remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.