Court Opinion

ID: 9526093
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:12:12.004171+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:18:22.389439
License: Public Domain

DYKMAN, P.J.
¶ 21. (dissenting). WISCONSIN Stat. § 60.52(1) (1997-98)1 provides:
With the approval of the town board, any city or village adjoining a town may construct and maintain extensions of its sewer or water system in the town.
¶ 22. The majority has concluded that what this statute really means is:
A city or village adjoining a town may construct an interceptor sewer within the town without the permission of the town board.
¶ 23. The way that the majority reaches its conclusion is to conclude that Wis. Stat. § 60.52(1) is ambiguous; that is, that the statute can reasonably be read in more than one way. Though clarity and ambiguity are occasionally in the eyes of the beholder, a statute is ambiguous if reasonable minds can understand it in more than one way. See Seider v. O'Connell, 2000 WI 76, ¶ 30, 236 Wis. 2d 211, 612 N.W.2d 659.
¶ 24. I believe that if the twenty-eight relevant words of WlS. Stat. § 60.52(1) were put to 100 persons on the street, 100 legislators, or 100 persons drawn randomly from the phone book, and the question were asked: "Must a city obtain approval from a town board to install a sewer on land within a town?" that at least ninety-eight members of each group would answer *192"yes." This, of course, assumes that these groups are composed of reasonable people. That aside, I do not believe that those twenty-eight words are susceptible to any answer but that town boards are not helpless when cities and villages adjoining them decide that they prefer to use town lands to bury their sewers. This would be a perfectly normal meaning to a perfectly normal statute found in a chapter of the statutes pertaining to towns. That is what the trial court concluded, and that is what I conclude.
¶ 25. The City of Sun Prairie's position, which the majority adopts, is that the twenty-eight words really refer only to the construction of the part of a sewer system that extends sewer service in a town. The reason why I part company with the City and the majority is that I cannot see how the concept of "hooking up to a sewer" is found within those twenty-eight words. The statute pertains to a "sewer or water system." The majority might have concluded that a sewer interceptor is not a "sewer or water system." This conclusion, though it runs aground on the facts, at least does not torture the English language. I do not find it possible, using the conventions of the English language, to bring within the twenty-eight operative words, the foreign concept of town residents being unable to drain their kitchen and bathroom waste water pipes into the city's interceptor. That concept is just not there.
¶ 26. The majority's answer to this is its conclusion: "We agree that both interpretations are reasonable interpretations for well-informed people to make." While I accept that this is a conclusion, I do not agree with it. Most inquiries into statutory meaning explain why a statute can be read one way or another. See, e.g., Kurylo v. Wisconsin Elec. Power Co., 2000 WI *193App 102, ¶ 7, 235 Wis. 2d 166, 612 N.W.2d 380. For example, in Kurylo, we explained, "[b]ecause the statute is silent regarding the time for filing the [certificates], it could reasonably be read to mean the [certificates] and conveyance must be filed simultaneously or that they may be filed at different times." Id. If there is no answer to the question "Why can the statute be read with two meanings?" it seems to me that the real answer is that the statute is unambiguous.
¶ 27. I need not examine the legislative history examined by the majority because having concluded that Wis. Stat. § 60.52(1) is clear, I may go no further on the question of statutory interpretation. See Seider, 2000 WI 76 at ¶¶ 49-50. In addition, I do not see how the town's silence was in reality its approval. I therefore respectfully dissent.

 All references to the Wisconsin Statutes are to the 1997-98 version unless otherwise noted.