Court Opinion

ID: 9707710
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 02:19:23.80922+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:41:46.301723
License: Public Domain

FINE, J.
(dissenting). It is not disputed that when Lake Bluff filed its application for a building permit on August 5,1993, Lake Bluffs plans did not comply with the then-existing C-2 zoning code. Lake Bluff did not, therefore, have a clear legal right to a building permit based on that application. Accordingly, any mandamus action brought by Lake Bluff to compel South Milwaukee to issue such a permit would have failed. See Keane v. St. Francis Hosp., 186 Wis. 2d 637, 646, 522 N.W.2d 517, 520 (Ct. App. 1994) (party seeking mandamus "must" show a " 'clear legal right'" to the requested relief) (emphasis in original, citation omitted).1 Indeed, *256had South Milwaukee issued the requested building permit, that permit could not have authorized Lake Bluff to develop its property in conformity with the application filed August 5. See Jelinski v. Eggers, 34 Wis. 2d 85, 93, 148 N.W.2d 750, 755 (1967) ("a building permit grants no vested rights to unlawful use") (upholding trial court's order that property owner remove garage constructed in violation of code but pursuant to building permit).
It is also not disputed that when Lake Bluff refiled its application for a building permit on March 10, 1994, Lake Bluff’s plans did not comply with the then-existing R-A zoning code (or the old C-2 zoning code, for that matter). Lake Bluff did not, therefore, have a clear legal right to a building permit based on that application either. Accordingly, any mandamus action brought by Lake Bluff to compel South Milwaukee to issue such a permit should also fail. See Keane, 186 Wis. 2d at 646, 522 N.W.2d at 520. Nevertheless, the trial court granted mandamus to Lake Bluff, and the majority affirms. In my view, both the trial court and the major*257ity ignore clear Wisconsin precedent to accomplish a result they desire.
It is the law in Wisconsin that a landowner does not get "vested rights" in a zoning classification by merely spending substantial sums in reliance on that classification. State ex rel. Humble Oil & Ref. Co. v. Wahner, 25 Wis. 2d 1, 13, 130 N.W.2d 304, 310 (1964) (Humble Oil did not acquire vested rights in a zoning classification by obtaining an option on the land, exercising that option, and by going "to considerable expense in developing plans for the development of the site."). Rather, at the very least, a building-permit application that conforms to the zoning requirements must be filed before the land is re-zoned. Id., 25 Wis. 2d at 13-14, 130 N.W.2d at 310-311 (zoning ordinance could not be changed to adversely affect Humble Oil "more than a year after Humble's first petition for a permit and one month after Humble had started these court proceedings based on the ordinance in effect" at the time). See also Jelinski, 34 Wis. 2d at 93, 148 N.W.2d at 755 (building permit issued in violation of building code does not authorize construction contrary to code even if " 'the holder of the illegal permit has incurred expenditures in reliance thereon'") (citation omitted). None of the cases upon which the majority relies holds that vested rights can attach before the filing of a building permit application that conforms to the existing zoning code; indeed, those cases teach just the opposite.2
*258The general rule in this country is that a landowner does not have vested rights even after issuance of a permit except "that a substantial change of position in reliance on a permit entitles the permittee to continue and complete the use authorized by the permit, irrespective of subsequent enactments or amendments of the zoning laws." 8 Eugene McQuillin, The Law of Municipal Corporations § 25.157, at 701-703 (3d ed. 1991). See also Humble, 25 Wis. 2d at 13, 130 N.W.2d at 310 ("Generally, a building permit must be obtained before vested rights arise.") (emphasis added). By permitting vested rights to accrue upon the filing of a permit application that conforms to the then-existing code, Wisconsin has greatly expanded the protection given to landowners who seek to develop their property. I am aware of no Wisconsin authority, however, and the majority cites none, that grants vested rights upon the mere expenditure of substantial sums of money without the concomitant filing of a building permit application that fully complies with the then-existing zoning code. See Jelinski, 34 Wis. 2d at 93, 148 N.W.2d at 755 (building permit issued in violation of building code does not authorize construction contrary to code even if " 'the holder of the illegal permit has *259incurred expenditures in reliance thereon1") (citation omitted).
The law must be sufficiently predictable so that men and women can conduct their business with the assurance that the rules are not going to change in mid-stream. This requires that judges follow precedent. We must not, like the apocryphal "Eastern despot" mentioned by Sir Frederick Pollock and Frederic William Maitland in the introduction to their seminal treatise on the common law, "deal with every case according to the impression of the moment." 1 F. Pollock & FW. Maitland, The History of English Law xxvii (2d ed. 1899). It is the majority's "impression" that Lake Bluff should win this case; and so it does.3
*260People have a right under the law to control the aesthetics, environment, and population density of their community. Section 62.23(7), Stats. By expanding the concept of "vested rights" beyond the parameters of existing law, the majority erodes this right. Although this court has substantial law-making responsibilities, see Vollmer v. Luety, 156 Wis. 2d 1, 15 n.4, 456 N.W.2d 797, 804 n.4 (1990), we may not decide cases contrary to supreme court precedent. I respectfully dissent.

 Although Lake Bluff might have had a clear legal right to have its August 5 application considered by South Milwaukee *256within a certain time, Lake Bluff never sought that relief. Indeed, as the majority concedes, only silence met the South Milwaukee city attorney's query to Lake Bluff on August 24, 1993: "If there is some reason that [review of the building-permit application] ought to be advanced and expedited, please advise me." Rather, as noted by Lake Bluffs attorney during oral argument, Lake Bluff decided to try to use the political process in an attempt to head off the looming rezoning. That attempt failed, and on November 2,1993, the land was rezoned to R-A. Lake Bluff has never challenged either the R-A classification or the rezoning process, and waited some four months, from November 2,1993, when the land was rezoned from C-2 to R-A, to March 10,1994, to seek legal redress at all.

State ex rel. Schroedel v. Pagels, 257 Wis. 376, 378-380, 382, 43 N.W.2d 349, 350-352 (1950) (mandamus) (building permit that complied with the then-existing zoning code was applied for prior to rezoning); Rosenberg v. Village of Whitefish Bay, 199 Wis. 214, 216-217, 225 N.W. 838, 839 (1929) (declaratory judgment) (building permit sought prior to enactment of *258new ordinance); Building Height Cases, 181 Wis. 519, 531, 532-533, 533, 195 N.W. 544, 549, 549, 550 (1923) (telephone company had "acquired a building permit... and had actually entered upon the further construction of the building, all prior to the passage of the law" limiting the height of certain buildings; law applicable to the Hotel Wisconsin's attempt to add a ninth story to its building where owner "made no application for a building permit until after passage and publication of said act"; prior to the passage of the act, the Piper Brothers had been granted a permit to build their hotel in Madison).

 According to Louis Nizer, Justice Benjamin Nathan Cardozo "defined judicial process as the instinctive reaching of a conclusion and with subsequent research and reasoning to justify it." Louis Nizer, My Life in Court 444 (1961). That has it backwards. At times, of course, "subsequent research" contradicts the "instinctive conclusion" or the "impression of the moment." When that happens, the result-oriented judge bends precedent. Thus, for example, in its haste to uphold the trial court's "exercise of discretion," as it phrases it, the majority has transformed the precise and correct analysis of the law in Keane v. St. Francis Hosp., 186 Wis. 2d 637, 522 N.W.2d 517 (Ct. App. 1994), that a party seeking mandamus relief "must" first show a " 'clear legal right'" to the requested relief before "additional discretionary, equitable considerations" are reached, id., 186 Wis. 2d at 646, 522 N.W.2d at 520 (emphasis in original, citation omitted), to something more fuzzy and, in my view, incorrect: "Typically, therefore a court considering mandamus will have little if any reason to analyze equitable considerations until a clear right and plain duty have been established. That is not to say, however, that equitable considerations are always and absolutely absent from the determination of whether a clear *260right and plain duty exist." Majority op. at 253 (emphasis added). Significantly, Judge Schudson, the author of the majority opinion, also wrote Keane.
Although I admire Cardozo, as we are all taught in law school to do, his result-first, reasoning-later approach is a dangerous jurisprudential methodology to adopt. Further, "Cardozo defended the right of a judge to deliberately misstate facts: T often say that one [a judge writing a judicial opinion] must permit oneself, and that quite advisedly and deliberately, a certain margin of misstatement' (Selected Writings 339, 341)." RA Posner, cardozo 43 (1990). (Bracketing and parenthesis in original.) Deliberate misstatements of the record is but one way the result-oriented judge forces the square peg of the desired decision into the round hole of the law; taking a rasp to the hole is another. The majority has not misstated the record; it has, however, ignored clear precedent.