Court Opinion

ID: 9721471
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:00:13.65114+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:26.166682
License: Public Domain

Heffernan, J.
(dissenting). I must concur in the logic of the majority and its citation of authority from *86other jurisdictions. I cannot, however, agree with the result.
The fact remains that the appellant was grievously damaged by the State Conservation Commission’s ultra, vires attempt to condemn her land. It seems strange that the legislature permits the recovery of costs when the state agency acts in good faith and abandons a condemnation project, but permits no recovery when the agency has been found culpable of abusing its statutory authority. It should be remembered that the agency forced the appellant to great expense for hearings while the very question of its power to condemn at all was pending in this court.
In the Constitution of the State of Wisconsin (art. I, sec. 9) appears the requirement:
“Every person is entitled to a certain remedy in the laws for all injuries, or wrongs which he may receive in his person, property, or character . . . conformably to the laws.”
Here, Elizabeth Martineau was demonstrably wronged in her property rights. While legislative oversight has failed to provide a “certain” remedy, under the fundamental law of the state, she should not be foreclosed of relief. Hers is a constitutional prerogative partaking of certain elements of the due-process right not to be deprived of property without just compensation. She has been forced to incur extensive obligations to assert her right to keep her property from the unauthorized assaults of a state agency. This is deprivation of property without due process and without just compensation.
In view of the clear constitutional mandate that she shall have a remedy, coupled with the legislature’s policy decision to pay compensation where there has been a good faith voluntary abandonment by the state, I would not construe the legislature’s language to bar a remedy in an analogous and even more meritorious case. *87To so construe the law is not a usurpation of legislative power by this court; it is the construction of a statute that avoids finding that the legislative action has been absurd. I believe that by reasonable implication payment of costs is to be made as in a voluntary abandonment.
Since I have not persuaded the majority of the court to my point of view, the aggrieved citizen goes remediless here. The legislature should correct what the majority deems to be a hiatus in the law, and should remedy the wrong that this court has decided it cannot remedy.
I am authorized to state that Mr. Chief Justice Hallows joins in this dissent.