Court Opinion

ID: 9468972
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:28:36.470305+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:09.000660
License: Public Domain

ON REHEARING
The State of Wisconsin has petitioned for rehearing with respect to the issue, not discussed in our opinion, whether the state statutes, Wis.Stat. §§ 342.20 and 349.13(3), that authorize towing are unconstitutional on their face because they do not require the city officers who do the actual towing to comply with any procedural safeguards, either pre-towing or post-towing, or whether they are merely enabling legislation. The district court’s judgment contains a declaration that the statutes are unconstitutional. But the state was not a party in the district court. It intervened in the appeal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2403(b) and filed a brief, but it did not participate in the oral argument, and we formed the impression, evidently erroneously, that the *649constitutionality of the state statutes was no longer an issue in the case.
As we have reversed the judgment of the district court, the declaration that the state objects to has been vacated. Of course the plaintiffs may move to reinstate it. But it is not certain that they will. They have not previously sought any relief against the state, which as mentioned was not a party to the district court proceedings; and since all the towing that is done in Milwaukee is done by city rather than state officers, it is far from clear that there is an actual controversy between the plaintiffs and the state regarding the subject matter of this lawsuit. We are naturally reluctant, to say the least, to address a constitutional question that may be academic.
If the plaintiffs do move the court below to reinstate its declaration that the state statutes are unconstitutional, the state will be entitled to intervene in the district court proceedings under 28 U.S.C. § 2403(b), and that court can then decide whether there is an actual controversy between the plaintiffs and the state and, if so, whether the declaration should be reinstated in light of the principles stated in our opinion.
Except for this clarification, the state’s petition for rehearing is denied. The plaintiffs’ petition for rehearing with suggestion for rehearing en banc has already been denied, the members of the panel having voted unanimously to deny it and no judge in active service having requested a vote on the suggestion.