Court Opinion

ID: 9717766
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:10:01.619934+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:55.240875
License: Public Domain

STEINMETZ, J.
(concurring). I concur in the result reached by the majority. I write only to state that I would not rely, as the majority does, on Cords v. Anderson, 80 Wis. 2d 525, 259 N.W.2d 672 (1977). In sum, the holding in Cords was that "the duty to either place warning signs or advise superiors of the condi*726tions is, on the facts here, a duty so clear and so absolute that it falls within the definition of a ministerial duty.” Id. at 542. (Emphasis added.) I believe that holding in Cords was exclusively limited to the facts therein, and is therefore an aberration in the law causing confusion. I would have joined the minority in Cords had I been on the court in 1977, which may well have made Justice Connor T. Hansen’s dissenting opinion the majority opinion. I especially agree with the dissent’s statement of the law as follows:
"A ministerial duty involves '... the mere performance of a prescribed task_’ Meyer v. Carman, 271 Wis. 329, 332, 73 N.W.2d 514 (1955). The duty must be '"positively imposed by law;”’ the time, manner and conditions of its performance must be ' "specifically designated” and the duty of performance must not be dependent upon the officer’s judgment or discretion. Meyer v. Carman, supra, at 332. The duty must not involve '... the exercise of the officer’s judgment upon the propriety of the act, ...’ Stevens v. North States Motor, Inc., 161 Minn. 345, 348, 201 N.W. 435 (1925).”
Finally, I believe the dissent was correct in its criticism of the majority opinion that: "The public employee must now discern and fulfill duties inherent in his post, without an objective referent and, apparently, even when his superiors have adopted contrary policies.” Id. at 557.
Cords was not a fact situation in which liability arose from a violation of a ministerial duty, because the duty must "be '"imposed by law,”’ and the time, manner and conditions of its performance must be '"specifically designated.’”” Cords, 80 Wis. 2d at 557, *727citing Meyer v. Carman, 271, Wis. 329, 332. Though this may not be the case in which to disavow the holding in Cords since it was not briefed, it is likewise not one in which Cords should be relied on as authority.
I would therefore concur in the majority’s decision.