Court Opinion

ID: 9740975
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:46:35.50781+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:21.262650
License: Public Domain

Currie, J.
(dissenting). The majority opinion places the court’s stamp of approval upon the procedure followed here by the appellant town in demurring to the petition for incorporation. The result is that an order overruling such a demurrer constitutes an appealable order under the provisions of sub. (3), sec. 274.33, Stats.
This issue was not before us on the prior appeal of In re Village of Oconomowoc Lake (1953), 264 Wis. 540, 59 N. W. (2d) 662, because, while the town of Summit therein attacked the sufficiency of the petition by an instrument entitled “Demurrer and Motion to Dismiss,” the order of the trial court did dismiss the petition as insufficient. Such an order was an appealable order under the provisions of sub. (1), sec. 274.33, Stats., as its effect was to terminate the action, which an order holding the allegations of the petition to be sufficient would not.
Sec. 263.06, Stats., authorizes demurrers to be interposed to “complaints” and sec. 263.01 makes it clear that ch. 263, Stats., relates to the forms of pleadings in “civil actions.” Proceedings to incorporate a village are special statutory proceedings and not civil actions. However, sec. 260.01 provides :
“Title XXV relates to civil actions in the circuit courts and other courts of record, having concurrent jurisdiction therewith to a greater or less extent, in civil actions, and to special proceeding's in such courts except where its provisions *539are clearly inapplicable or inappropriate to special proceedings.” (Italics supplied.)
Demurrers are “clearly inapplicable and inappropriate” to village incorporation proceedings. Secs. 61.01 to 61.08, Stats., govern such proceedings and do not require that the petition be served on anyone but merely that it be filed with the court. Sub. (1) of sec. 61.07 confers upon a majority of 'the freeholders residing in the territory sought to be incorporated, or the owners of more than one half of the property by assessed value in such territqry, the right to file a petition subscribed by them in opposition to the incorporation. If such opposition petition is filed the court is required to deny the petition for incorporation. Sub. (2) of sec. 61.07 provides that if such an opposition petition is not filed “the court shall hear all parties interested for or against such application who shall seasonably appear.”
This prescribed procedure is in marked contrast to such a special statutory proceedings as condemnation where the property owner whose land is sought to be taken by a municipal corporation is expressly given the right to serve and file an answer (sub. (1) of sec. 32.07, Stats.) and where the proceeding is adversary in character. The instant village incorporation proceedings are nonadversary in character because directed against no one, and the town out of whose territory the village is sought to be incorporated merely has the right to appear and affirmatively object if the statutory procedure for incorporation is not complied with. The village incorporation statutes do not contemplate that the town or anyone else shall file an answer or demurrer to the petition.
By holding that such a petition is not demurrable, an objecting property owner or town would in nowise be prejudiced because the sufficiency of the petition can always be reviewed on appeal from the order granting the incorporation. On the other hand, by according the right of demurrer to an object*540ing town, a temptation is provided to use it, together with the concomitant right of appeal from an order overruling the demurrer, for purposes of delay so as to gain at least one year more of taxes from the territory sought to be incorporated.
The proper disposition to make of this appeal would be to hold that the objecting town had no right to demur to the petition, and, therefore, the order overruling such so-called demurrer is not an appealable order.
Turning now to the merits, I must respectfully dissent from the conclusion of the majority that the petition was insufficient. It must not be lost sight of that this incorporation proceeding is purely statutory in character. The petition contains every allegation required by the express wording of secs. 61.01 to 61.06, Stats. If this court by implication reads into such statutes the requirement that the described territory must have the characteristics of a village, then in construing the instant petition, which contains all the allegations expressly required by the statutes and requests that such territory be incorporated "as a village,” the same reasonable inference should be drawn therefrom that it does allege that such territory does possess the characteristics of a village.
I am authorized to state that Mr. Justice MartiN and Mr. Justice Steinle concur in this dissent.