Court Opinion

ID: 9581808
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:18:58.901432+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:37:16.055292
License: Public Domain

Gehl, J.
(concurring). I would base my conclusion, which is the same as that of the majority, upon the ground that the city is estopped to assert any right which it might have to prevent plaintiffs from exercising their riparian rights to swim or bathe in or to sail on the lake. Neither the city nor its predecessor in title could have obtained the easement by the use of which it acquires its supply of water except by gift, contract, or condemnation. The record discloses that it was obtained by contract and that the city claims no right to the water except by virtue of the contract which was assigned to it. It holds the right in its proprietary capacity and in that capacity it is subject to the law of estoppel. In Chicago, St. P., M. & O. R. Co. v. Douglas County (1908), 134 Wis. 197, 206, 114 N. W. 511, we said:
“It is, however, quite well settled that when the state makes itself a party to an action or to a contract or grant in its proprietary capacity it is subject to the law of estoppel as other parties litigant or other contracting parties.”
If the state may be estopped under the circumstances stated, it is only a short step to saying that a city may likewise be. See Libby, McNeill & Libby v. Dept. of Taxation (1952), 260 Wis. 551, 51 N. W. (2d) 796; State ex rel. A. Hynek & Sons Co. v. Board of Appeals (1954), 267 Wis. 309, 64 *23N. W. (2d) 741, 66 N. W. (2d) 623. The principles of equity should be applicable to the city which does not find itself helpless because we hold that it is bound by its contract. The city has available the right of purchase or eminent domain or the means of treating the water so as to make it clean. True, resort to either of these methods might result in greater expense to it than would the denial to plaintiffs of the rights which the city’s predecessor expressly agreed should continue to exist in plaintiffs’ predecessor and its assignees. But that would not relieve the city of its duty to abide by the terms of its contract, nor would it permit us to disregard the equity and justice of the case because of the supposed superior right of the city to take property in the exercise of its police power,