Opinion ID: 1709662
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: role of the legislature

Text: ถ 40. We acknowledge that a violation of the Solid Waste Law can be said to affect all citizens of the state of Wisconsin, such that the State commenced this action on behalf of those injured citizens. Nevertheless, a request to equate the violation of state law with the concealed, latent injury of a tort victim, so as to expand the statute of limitations in this case, is one better directed to the legislature than to this court. Wisconsin courts have traditionally held that statutes of limitation are policy considerations within the province of the legislature. Miller v. Kretz, 191 Wis. 2d 573, 580, 531 N.W.2d 93 (Ct. App. 1995). See also Tomczak v. Bailey, 218 Wis. 2d 245, 254, 578 N.W.2d 166 (1998) (In short, the decision to close the courthouse doors on litigants with stale claims is a pure question of policy that is better left to the legislative branch of government.). Even in the context of tort actions, this court was extremely reluctant to adopt a common-law discovery rule for this very reason. See Hansen, 113 Wis. 2d at 556-557 (illustrating that we adopted the discovery rule for actions sounding in tort at least some 23 years, and one legislative amendment, after the problem of discovery of injury was officially noted in an opinion). ถ 41. More importantly, the decision to adopt an open-ended discovery rule of this sort is a course of action that should be undertaken only after substantial review by the legislature. This review may reveal that the State's perceived inability to discover violations of its environmental laws and regulations is a serious problem that ought to be dealt with immediately. On the other hand, the legislature may learn that the situation presented here is a relatively uncommon one, so that no discovery rule, or perhaps a very limited one, [18] is needed. ถ 42. As yet another option, the legislature might conclude that adopting a discovery rule would not cure what it perceives to be the real problem: an ill-designed or inefficient environmental enforcement program or statute to begin with. On this point, the words of the 3M court are once again pertinent to our discussion: An agency may experience problems in detecting statutory violations because its enforcement effort is not sufficiently funded; or because the agency has not devoted an adequate number of trained personnel to the task; or because the agency's enforcement program is ill-designed or inefficient; or because the nature of the statute makes it difficult to uncover violations; or because of some combination of these factors and others. . . .An agency's failure to detect violations, for whatever reasons, does not avoid the problems of faded memories, lost witnesses and discarded documents in penalty actions brought decades after alleged violations are finally discovered. 3M, 17 F.3d at 1461. ถ 43. In sum, the legislature is in a better position to adopt the discovery rule for violations of the Solid Waste Law: it has the resources, the time, and the investigatory capability to review and analyze the competing interests at stake in this matter. The words of Justice Day in State v. Mauthe, 123 Wis. 2d 288, 302, 366 N.W.2d 871 (1985), may best summarize our reasons for leaving the choice to adopt this discovery of violation rule to the legislature: The manner in which our air, water and land is to be safeguarded, protected and improved is under the control of the legislature. The various laws passed and the grants of authority to state agencies is the means by which this is done. Wisconsin Environmental Decade v. D.N.R., 115 Wis. 2d 381, 414, 340 N.W.2d 222 (1983). The vitally important work of protecting the life sustaining forces around us, collectively referred to as the environment, is basic and fundamental to our survival. The means to achieve these ends are not always agreed upon. Experts often are in disagreement as to how to achieve these results. Under our system it is the legislature and the agencies it empowers to carry out its mandates that bear this tremendous responsibility. It is they who must resolve the conflicting interests and approaches to specific problems. [T]he D.N.R. is the state agency with the staff, sources and expertise in environmental matters. . . . Wisconsin's Environmental Decade, 115 Wis. 2d at 391. Id. [2] ถ 44. For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that the discovery rule is inapplicable to the State's remedial and punitive environmental enforcement action under the Solid Waste Law. In this situation, the need to protect defendants from stale claims outweighs any injustice caused by barring environmental enforcement actions under the Solid Waste Law prior to discovery. Because liability for the remediation and penalties imposed by the Solid Waste Law attached at the moment of the violation, the claim also accrued at that time, thereby rendering the State's action untimely. [19]