Court Opinion

ID: 9728009
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:55:14.898819+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:44.971036
License: Public Domain

O’Sullivan, J.
(dissenting). I am unable to accept the conclusion reached by my associates.
The case at bar presents a statute prescribing a judicial procedure which, so far as I have been able to ascertain, is unprecedented in this state. General Statutes, Cum. Sup. 1953, § 1605c. The statute first authorizes the state water commission to issue an order directing any person, firm or corporation to install a system aimed at the elimination of pollution of waters of the state. “Such order,” it continues in part, “shall specify the particular system or means to be used or operated. . . . Such order shall specify the time within which such system or means shall be used or the operation thereof shall be commenced and such time may be extended by the commission upon application made to it by the person, firm or corporation to whom such order shall have been issued and any such order may, upon application, be modified by the commission in any other particular not inconsistent with the provisions hereof. . . .” Then follows the only provision authorizing action by the court: “The commission may cause the enforcement of any order issued by it to reduce, control or eliminate pollution of any water, by application to the superior court ... to enjoin any person, firm or corporation from continuing such pollution, or in the case of a municipality, ... to issue an appropriate decree or process. . . .” The court, to which the plaintiff commission made its application, could exercise only the authority con*449ferred upon it by the General Assembly. It could go as far as the statute permitted and no further. The pertinent provision is that the Superior Court may “issue an appropriate decree or process.” But the objective for such a decree or process is to enforce the order of the commission. There is nothing in the statute which empowers the court, first, to modify the order and, thereafter, to issue a decree to enforce it as modified. The court obviously went beyond the authority which the legislature granted and, consequently, its action in so doing was invalid.
What the commission should have done, but failed to do, was this: Directly after the expiration of the time set by General Statutes, § 4044, for the defendant to seek a judicial review of the reasonableness of. the order, the commission could have applied to the Superior Court for an appropriate decree to enforce the order. The majority, taking the view that this course was not available to the commission, say: “It might be contended that the statute contemplates that the commission should apply to the court in advance of the time for compliance set in its order. If this were so, it would put the commission in the position of having to anticipate that every municipality to which an order was directed would ignore it.” But that was exactly the reason why the General Assembly created the novel judicial procedure set up in the statute.
The majority, I fear, have forgotten the history of pollution in this state and the attitude of cities and towns toward measures adopted to terminate it. Because of the financial burden which would follow upon the acceptance of their share of the effort necessary to eliminate their contribution to pollution, municipalities have been not only indifferent but actually antagonistic to the state program. *450Several of them have used dilatory tactics and placed obstacles in the way in order to avoid co-operating with the state authorities. Indeed, in many instances, the commission has been looked upon as an administrative agency that had to be tolerated but not followed. To avoid the effect of this improper attitude, the General Assembly put real teeth into its enactment. It permitted the commission to assume, contrary to the holding of the majority quoted above, that municipalities would not obey its orders — as had happened previously — and, upon that assumption, to obtain a judicial decree, compelling performance, before default occurred. The application made by the commission in the case at bar came too late.
The foregoing reason is ample to justify my dissent. This makes it unnecessary to decide whether the action of the court was invalid for the further reason that, even if it is conceded that the legislature authorized the court to modify the commission’s order, the statutory provision was invalid as the imposition upon the judiciary of an administrative function. State v. Stoddard, 126 Conn. 623, 627, 13 A.2d 586.