Court Opinion

ID: 9659086
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 21:31:55.340451+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:03.815272
License: Public Domain

*179EICH, C.J.
(dissenting). I would affirm the circuit court because I believe the WPPA proposal is "primarily related" to wages and thus a mandatory subject of bargaining, City of Brookfield v. WERC, 153 Wis. 2d 238, 242-43, 450 N.W.2d 495, 497 (Ct. App. 1989), and because I disagree with the majority's determination that the provisions of secs. 40.02(48)(am) and (b)3, Stats., are to be given no weight in determining whether the La Crosse County deputy sheriffs working as jailers are engaged in a "protective occupation." To me, those statutory sections are plain and unambiguous and compel affirmance of the trial court's decision. Nor would I, as the majority has done, rely so heavily on recitations of legislative history not cited, relied on or argued to us by the parties to the appeal.
The county's argument, and the majority's decision, appear to give controlling weight to language in sec. 40.02(48)(a), Stats., which they consider to delegate to the employer full discretion to determine who is, and who is not, a ''[protective occupation participant." Doing so, they give no weight to the subsections that follow.
Section 40.02(48)(a), Stats., does, as the majority points out, state that the term " '[protective occupation participant' means any [employee] whose principal duties are determined by the ... employer ... to involve active law enforcement. . . [and] require frequent exposure to a high degree of danger or peril and ... require a high degree of physical conditioning." But that does not end the matter.
The following subsection, sub. (am), goes on to state that the term " [protective occupation participant" also "includes any [employee] . . . who is a . . . deputy sheriff —" And a succeeding subsection, sub. (b)3, states that a "deputy sheriff" is any employee of a sheriffs office *180other than one "whose principal duties are those of a telephone operator, clerk, stenographer, machinist or mechanic____" I thus read the several subsections of sec. 40.02 to designate as "protective occupation participants" persons in certain named occupations, such as that of a deputy sheriff (unless the persons in those occupations are assigned to specific non-law enforcement-related duties such as those of a clerk, stenographer, etc.) and other employees not in traditional law enforcement positions whose duties are nonetheless determined by the employer to involve active law enforcement (see sec. 40.02(48)(a)).
There is no question that a jailer is a deputy sheriff and that jailers' duties are not of the "non-law enforcement" type just mentioned. It follows, I believe, that they are protective occupation participants within the meaning of sec. 40.02, and that both the WERC and the circuit court correctly decided the issues brought before them. I therefore respectfully dissent from the position taken by my colleagues in this case.