Court Opinion

ID: 9737561
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:28:44.344212+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:23:59.808653
License: Public Domain

Hallows, C. J.
(dissenting). I dissented in State ex rel. Reynolds v. Nusbaum (1962), 17 Wis. 2d 148, 115 N. W. 2d 761, because I believed the safety and welfare of schoolchildren were proper constitutional purposes of a school bus law. Following that decision the people of Wisconsin so provided and the law under question resulted. I must now dissent to the majority opinion on the very basic ground that the exception provided in sec. 121.54 (1), Stats., to the school bus law is unconstitutional because the exception allows a school board to discriminate in matters of safety and welfare between children who reside in the city and those who reside in the rural area of the same school district. The result is to deny the equal protection of the law to city schoolchildren.
The majority of the court considers the statute allowing the bussing of children to public and private schools to be clear and therefore not in any need of construction. It also considers its reading of the statute as not resulting in an absurd result even though children living near St. Mary’s Springs Academy are bussed to the high school in the city of Fond du Lac while children living near the high school in the city of Fond du Lac are not bussed to St. Mary’s Springs Academy.
In my opinion the exclusion in sec. 121.54 (1), Stats., providing that equal transportation need not apply to *511pupils who reside in cities creates an unreasonable classification and bears no reasonable relationship to the purpose of the law. The purpose and object of the school bus law is to promote and provide for the safety and welfare of children by providing transportation. I see no valid distinction between city and rural children in respect to their safety and welfare. It is just as healthy or unhealthy to walk two miles in the city as it is in the country and I believe the traffic hazards are greater in the city than in the country, at least the traffic statistics and insurance rates so indicate. If the law required the bussing of city children and excepted rural children, the denial of the equal protection of the law might be more apparent to some people. Legislative classification in order not to violate equal protection of the laws must be “germane to the purposes of the law, is not based upon existing circumstances only, applies equally to members of a class, and the character of one class is so different from another class as reasonably to suggest the necessity or propriety, having regard for the public good, of substantially different legislative treatment.” Union Free High School Dist. v. Union Free High School Dist. (1934), 216 Wis. 102, 107, 256 N. W. 788, as quoted in State ex rel. Harvey v. Morgan (1966), 30 Wis. 2d 1, 139 N. W. 2d 585.
This is no fringe or borderline case. Some 392 schoolchildren reside in the city of Fond du Lac more than two miles from St. Mary’s Springs Academy; these children are not transported by bus to the academy by the school district although a bus goes out in that direction empty in the morning to pick up children living in the area of St. Mary’s Springs Academy and bring them to the Fond du Lac high school. Likewise, in the afternoon the Fond du Lac residents who attended St. Mary’s Springs Academy can walk back to the city while a bus returns empty after taking home the rural area students. The constitution should go in all directions at all hours of the day.
*512I do not believe the exclusion can be saved by the construction suggested by other members of the court in their minority opinion. Their construction as pointed out by the majority takes care of the City children going to a high school outside of the city and thus equalizes them with children living in the rural areas who attend a high school in the city, but such construction completely ignores city children attending a city high school. These children, too, are entitled to bus service on the same terms and conditions applicable to other children living in the school district. The exception cannot be partially saved. It is unconstitutional in its,totality because it does not treat all schoolchildren in the same school district equally.
The majority argues but not on constitutional grounds that the mandamus action does not go far enough because it only requires the school board to bus children to St. Mary’s Springs Academy and does not require the school board to provide bus service to children residing in the city who wish to go to a city school and live more than two miles therefrom. I agree. All students living in the district, whether they be in or out of the city, should be treated alike. All should be bussed for their safety and welfare. Their health and their safety are of the same concern of the school board, their parents pay the same school taxes, and the service should be the same. I would affirm.