Court Opinion

ID: 9705738
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:18:25.207871+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:14.529718
License: Public Domain

*228SCHUDSON, J.
(dissenting). As the majority-points out, "[t]he parties do not dispute but that the attorney general qualifies as 'any person'" under § 30.294, Stats., majority op. at 223, and, therefore, has statutory authority to seek an injunction to abate what, under City of Oak Creek v. Department of Natural Resources, 185 Wis. 2d 424, 443-51, 518 N.W.2d 276, 282-85 (Ct. App. 1994), has already been declared a public nuisance. Indeed, in its brief to this court, Oak Creek implicitly conceded the attorney general's standing to do so and, at oral argument, explicitly confirmed that concession.
The only remaining issue, therefore, is whether the attorney general can be denied the opportunity to offer an argument, in support of its action seeking the injunction, challenging the constitutionality of the statute enacted for the singular purpose of circumventing this court's decision in City of Oak Creek. Or, were we to phrase this purely in terms of standing, the remaining issue would be whether the attorney general, as "any person" having standing to seek an injunction under § 30.294, Stats., somehow automatically loses that standing by making a constitutional challenge to that statute.
No authority supports the apparently preposterous notion that, absent waiver, a party can be precluded from offering a legal argument in support of its valid legal action. Thus, not surprisingly, the majority's conclusion rests on only one case: Public Intervenor v. Department of Natural Resources, 115 Wis. 2d 28, 339 N.W.2d 324 (1983), in which the supreme court stated, "Nowhere is there a statutory provision giving the attorney general or his assistants the power to challenge the constitutionality of a law or rule of this state or one of its agencies." Id. at 36, 339 *229N.W.2d at 327 (citation omitted). A careful reading of the supreme court's complete decision, however, reveals that Public Intervenor does not preclude the attorney general from challenging Oak Creek's legislative maneuver. Indeed, carefully considered, Public Intervenor confirms the attorney general's opportunity to challenge this end-around statute in order to support its statutorily authorized legal action to abate a public nuisance.
Public Intervenor explicitly and repeatedly addresses "whether the public intervenor... has standing to challenge the constitutionality of an administrative code." Id. at 29, 339 N.W.2d at 324 (emphasis added). See generally id. at 29-40, 339 N.W.2d at 324-29. Then, inexplicably, and without providing any authority or even any transitional language, the supreme court breaks from its explicit analysis of the authority of the public intervenor, and writes, "Wisconsin has specifically limited the powers and duties of the attorney general," id. at 35, 339 N.W.2d at 327 (emphasis added).
This is dicta, and logically flawed dicta to be sure. In Public Intervenor, as a matter of fact and law, the public intervenor and the attorney general were adversaries. In Public Intervenor, the supreme court had to determine not the authority of the attorney general who opposed the public intervenor, but rather, the separate and specific statutory authority of the public intervenor. See § 165.07, Stats., 1981-82; majority op. at 224 n.4. Therefore, not only was the supreme court's discussion of the attorney general's authority a slip into an area wholly unnecessary to the determination of the case, see State v. Sartin, 200 Wis. 2d 47, 60 n.7, 546 N.W.2d 449, 454 n.7 (1996) ("Dicta is a statement or language expressed in a court's opinion which extends beyond *230the facts in the case and is broader than necessary and not essential to the determination of the issues before it."), but its suggestion that the authority of the attorney general and the public intervenor could somehow be equated was a complete fall into an illogical hole.
Moreover, even if we were to accept this dicta — and thus accept that the public intervenor in Public Intervenor and the attorney general in Oak Creek are to be equated for. the purpose of analyzing whether the attorney general may challenge the constitutionality of the statute in the instant case — Public Intervenor actually would support the attorney general's position under the following syllogism:
(a) Public Intervenor states: "[F]or the public intervenor to challenge the constitutionality of this administrative rule, he must have standing conferred from his statutory creation and authority." Id. at 40, 339 N.W.2d at 329.
(b) In the instant case, as Oak Creek concedes, the attorney general has standing, by virtue of "statutory creation and authority" under § 30.294, STATS., as "any person," to bring a legal action to abate a public nuisance.
(c) Therefore, unlike the public intervenor in Public Intervenor, the attorney general has standing to challenge the statute in the instant case.
Only one passage in Public Intervenor could conceivably undermine this analysis. Quoting Columbia County v. Wisconsin Retirement Fund, 17 Wis. 2d 310, 316, 116 N.W.2d 142, 145-46 (1962), the supreme court writes: " 'Standing on the threshold of the constitutional issues is the question whether the plaintiffs have the legal capacity to sue and the right to contest the constitutionality of ch. 459, Laws of 1961.'" Public *231Intervenor, 115 Wis. 2d at 40, 339 N.W.2d at 329 (emphasis added). This, perhaps, implies the otherwise novel notion that standing itself has two components, the second of which is "the right to contest the constitutionality." See id. (citation omitted).
But Public Intervenor's invocation of Columbia County is so obviously erroneous as to be almost lyrically laughable. In Columbia County, the supreme court begins its opinion by stating, "Standing on the threshold," Columbia County, 17 Wis. 2d at 316, 116 N.W.2d at 145, as in the musical refrain, "standing on the corner." Measured grammatically, syntactically, and logically, the supreme court's introductory phrase in Columbia County simply was not referring to legal standing. Therefore, Public Intervenor's critically important quotation of Columbia County establishes that Public Intervenor's non-sensical dicta rests on an illogical premise.1
*232Thus, I recognize that Public Intervenor throws the majority into a wild briar patch potentially entangling what, no doubt, would otherwise be the majority's clear confirmation of the attorney general's authority to challenge Oak Creek's outrageous circumvention of our previous decision. I conclude, however, that a most careful reading of Public Intervenor reveals that its entanglement is pure dicta, and its dicta is ludicrous.
Not surprisingly, therefore, elevating Public Intervenor's dubious dicta to control the instant appeal will bring devastating consequences in this case and others. Not only will this public nuisance remain, but other losing litigants will be emboldened to circumvent appellate decisions determining that a statute is unconstitutional not by appealing to a higher court, but rather, by applying political pressure. Such pressure will be particularly potent in environmental cases where citizens may not be aware of environmental harm or, as may have been true here, citizens might not bring a challenge precisely because they reasonably assume the attorney general will do so. Finally, elevating Public Intervenor's dicta advances the otherwise unprecedented proposition that a party may be precluded from presenting a theory, indeed an essential theory, in support of a valid legal action.
Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.

 Were this not enough to jettison Public Intervenor's reliance on Columbia County, also consider that Columbia County involved an action not by the attorney general, but rather, by eight Wisconsin counties. Thus, Columbia County can be and has been cited for the proposition that political subdivisions of the state have no capacity to make constitutional challenges to state statutes. See, e.g., Buse v. Smith, 74 Wis. 2d 550, 562, 247 N.W.2d 141, 147 (1976); City of Madison v. Ayers, 85 Wis. 2d 540, 544, 271 N.W.2d 101, 103 (1978). Villages, towns, cities, and counties, however, have no legal authority or responsibility to defend Wisconsin's Constitution against statutory encroachment. By contrast, the attorney general often has the "duty to defend the constitution [that] necessarily encompasses a duty to challenge ... a statute which the Attorney General regards as constitutionally infirm." People v. Pollution Control Bd., 404 N.E.2d 352, 355 (Ill. App. Ct. 1980). See also Fund Manager v. Corbin, 778 P.2d 1244, 1250 (Ariz. Ct. App. 1988), modified in part, 778 P.2d 1260 (Ariz. 1989).