Court Opinion

ID: 9698413
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 19:49:48.389834+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:40.817479
License: Public Domain

DAVID T. PROSSER, J.
¶ 39. (concurring). I join the majority opinion in the belief that it correctly applies the court's decision in Forest County v. Goode, 219 Wis. 2d 654, 579 N.W.2d 715 (1998). The opinion states that the circuit court may "consider all equitable issues" in a zoning enforcement action under Wis. Stat. § 62.23(8). Majority op., ¶ 37.
¶ 40. I write separately because the majority opinion implies that the decision in Lake Bluff Housing Partners v. City of South Milwaukee, 2001 WI App 150, 246 Wis. 2d 785, 632 N.W.2d 485 (Lake Bluff IV), which extended the principles of the Goode case to enforcement actions under a different statute, is copacetic. It is not, and it should have been reversed.
¶ 41. In Lake Bluff IV, the court of appeals concluded that the circuit court "properly engaged in the equitable analysis under Goode. Its written decision addresses all the pertinent factors." Lake Bluff IV, ¶ 29 (emphasis added). In fact, however, the circuit court determined that some equitable factors — that is, equitable factors that had been raised and rejected in prior legal proceedings — could not be considered de novo by *128the court in an equity proceeding because the prior legal determinations were the law of the case. This determination by the circuit court in 2000, implicitly approved by the court of appeals in Lake Bluff IV, is plainly inconsistent with the holding and sound reasoning in this case.
¶ 42. This court declined to review Lake Bluff IV on January 31, 2002. My unpublished dissent to the denial of the petition for review is attached to this concurrence as Exhibit 1, so as to explain in detail my reservations about Lake Bluff IV.
¶ 43. For the foregoing reasons I concur.
EXHIBIT 1