Court Opinion

ID: 9595600
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:42:04.386211+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:29.119768
License: Public Domain

Robert W. Hansen, J.
(dissenting). The parting of the ways with the court majority comes at the point where the majority holds that these petitioners were not entitled to a full and fair hearing on their petition for incorporation of their town as a village.1
*478That a full and fair hearing is statutorily required in an administrative agency hearing, prior to the disposition of any contested case, is acknowledged and not at issue.2
One requirement of the “fair play” provisions of the administrative procedure statute is that all evidence, including documents, shall be made part of the record, with all parties to be afforded an adequate opportunity to rebut or offer countervailing evidence. The subsection involved requires:
“(2) All evidence, including records and documents in the possession of the agency of which it desires to avail itself, shall be duly offered and made a part of the record in the case. Every party shall be afforded adequate opportunity to rebut or offer countervailing evidence.”3
It is unchallenged that this requirement for a full and fair hearing was not here met. On the key issue of impact of the incorporation on the neighboring city, the hearing officer’s decision relied and quoted from four federal government reports that were never made part of the report, and which the appellant had no opportunity to rebut. Additionally, no notice was given to appellant that these reports were to be used by the hearing officer.4 Thus the procedural requirements for a “fair play” hearing were not here met. All parties involved concede that they were not met.
Unless the hearing on this petition for incorporation can be held to have been not contested, it follows that *479appellant’s right to a full and fair hearing was denied. The statute defines a “contested case” in an administrative adjudication as follows:
“ ‘Contested case’ means a proceeding before an agency-in which, after hearing required by law, the legal rights, duties or privileges of any party to such proceeding are determined or directly affected by a decision or order in such proceeding and in which the assertion by one party of any such right, duty or privilege is denied or controverted by another party to such proceeding.”5
In 1973, in a case, the Daly Case,6 here controlling as to the construction to be given this statute, our court held:
“Prom the statute it is clear that three elements must appear before the proceeding becomes a contested case. First there must be a hearing required by law. . . . Second, the legal rights, duties or privileges of one party must have been determined or adversely affected by the proceeding. . . . Third, the assertion of those rights, duties or privileges must have been denied or controverted by another party to the proceeding.”7 (Emphasis supplied.)
All three required elements are in the case before us. First, as to the hearing being required by law, the hearing here involved was required by sec. 66.014 (9), Stats. Second, as to rights being determined or adversely affected, the right or privilege of residents of the town to incorporate as a village under secs. 66.013-66.018 was determined and certainly adversely affected by the decision of the planning director. Third, the assertion of that right or privilege to incorporate was denied and controverted at the hearing by the city attorney of Green Bay, acting on behalf of such municipality. Unless the clear language of the statute and the equally clear mandate of the Daly Case are to be ignored, it is evident *480that these three requirements were met and that this hearing was indeed a “contested case.”
Eleven years before the Daly Case, holding that three elements only are involved in determining if an administrative hearing is contested, this court in Ashwaubenon,8 in 1962, dealt with the attempt of a town to challenge a relocation of a state arterial highway by the state highway commission. The commission had held a hearing on relocation which this court held was “merely a part of the investigative processes of the commission and was to aid the commission in its comprehension of the problems involved.”9 (That would not describe the hearing in the case before us, mandated by sec. 66.014 (9), Stats.) It doubted that the town of Ashwaubenon was “an aggrieved party entitled to seek review of the commission’s decision.”10 (That would not describe the appellant filing a petition for. incorporation under secs. 66.013-66.018, Stats.) It held that the town there involved “did not have any special kind of interest” in the proceeding, but only “the same interest in the proposed relocation as any other affected municipality or landowner. . . 11 (That would not describe petitioners for incorporation of their town as a village.) It affirmed what it termed “the breath of the [highway] commission’s power in laying out state highways. . . .”12 For all of these reasons, it held the case not to be contested and concluded that the “fair-play provisions of ch. 227 (secs. 227.07-227.13, Stats., inclusive) do not apply to the case at bar.”13
The reference to a lack of a “special kind of interest” in Ashwaubenon is not to be read as an addition of a *481fourth element to the three statutory requirements as to a case being contested. If that were the intent, this court would have added, eleven years later, such fourth requirement to the three-only test set forth in Daly. In Daly, the Ashwaubenon Case is cited but no suggestion is made that it added a fourth requirement to the threefold test as to fact of contest specified in the statute and set forth in Daly. Actually, in Ashwaubenon, the court was not changing sec. 227.01 (2), Stats. It was applying it, finding all three requirements of sec. 227.01 (2), later stated in Daly, not to have been met by the town of Ashwaubenon.
Even if Ashwaubenon is read to make Daly incomplete and incorrect, it would not help the respondent here. In Ashwaubenon, this court said: “When the legislature defined a contested case in sec. 227.01 (2), Stats., it contemplated some special interest such as occurred in Hall v. Banking Review Board (1961), 13 Wis. 2d 359, 108 N. W. 2d 533,” saying of such Hall Case that, “in the bank case there was a particularized and adversary interest affecting both the proposed new bank and the existing bank.”14 In Hall, as in the case before us, the hearing held was required by statute. In Hall, there was testimony by an existing bank in opposition to a banking license in Glendale being granted to the applicant. In the case before us, there was opposition to the petition for incorporation presented by the city attorney on behalf of the' city of Green Bay. The court in Hall held that “this proceeding was a contested case because of the opposition to the application by the Whitefish Bay State Bank.”15 In the case before us, it is similarly clear that the hearing became a contested case because of the opposition to it by the city of Green Bay. In the case before us, not only do we have two adversary parties but, on the issue of *482impact upon the metropolitan community,16 we have present in the ring or at the hearing the two principal adversaries — residents of the town seeking incorporation as a village and the legal counsel for the largest city in the metropolitan area involved. Both had adverse interests, special to themselves.
Nor can the denial of a full and fair hearing be upheld on the ground that the hearing or issues before the planning director can be labeled “legislative” rather than “adjudicative.” This distinction between “legislative” and “adjudicative” applies only to specific facts being determined by the fact finder. In the processing of an application for lake-fill, our court held that the public service commission “was discharging a legislative function” 17 but, the case being contested, “the fair-play provisions of secs. 227.07 through 227.13 of the State Administrative Procedure Act apply to the proceedings.”18 Even Askwaubenon held that “a legislative-type hearing does not necessarily preclude the matter from being a contested case [under sec. 227.01 (2)]. . . .”19 Our court has challenged the wisdom of attempting to draw a legislative-adjudicative distinction in administrative agency cases for the obvious reason that in a single proceeding such agency commonly acts in both roles.20 If the claim *483were that under sec. 66.016, Stats., the planning director has been delegated a power to make the law rather than an authority to be exercised only under and pursuant to the law, that would be an unconstitutional delegation by the legislature of its power to make the law.21 In the case before us, the legislature has determined that certain conditions or standards must be met before the incorporation petition is submitted for referendum. Whether these standards have been complied with is an administrative adjudication, delegated to the head of the planning function, but requiring a hearing to be conducted with notice and under the “fair play” procedures if it is contested.
The writer would reverse and remand, with directions to the circuit court and planning director that a full and fair hearing be held on the petition for incorporation of the town of Allouez as a village be conducted under the rules and procedures of the “fair play” provisions (secs. 227.07 through 227.13) of the Wisconsin Administrative Procedure Act.
*484I am authorized to state that Mr. Justice Leo B. Hanley and Mr. Justice Connor T. Hansen join in this dissent.

 The petition for incorporation of the town of Allouez as a village was filed in the Brown county circuit court pursuant to secs. 66.013-66.018, Stats.

 Secs. 227.07 through 227.13, Stats., commonly referred to as the “fair-play provisions” of the Wisconsin Administrative Procedure Act (ch. 227).

 Sec. 227.10 (2), Stats.

 Sec. 227.10 (3), Stats., providing: “Agencies may take official notice of any generally recognized fact or any established technical or scientific fact; but parties shall be notified either before or during hearing or by full reference in preliminary reports or otherwise, of the facts so noticed, and they shall be afforded an opportunity to contest the validity of the official notice.”

 Sec. 227.01 (2), Stats.

 Daly v. Natural Resources Board (1973), 60 Wis. 2d 208, 208 N. W. 2d 839.

 Id. at pages 216, 217.

 Ashwaubenon v. State Highway Commission (1962), 17 Wis. 2d 120, 115 N. W. 2d 498.

 Id. at page 126.

 Id. at page 128.

 Id. at page 128.

 Id. at page 130.

 Id. at page 127.

 Id. at page 128.

 Hall v. Banking Review Board, supra, 13 Wis. 2d at page 367.

 The hearing officer held that the area proposed for incorporation met all statutory standards except that set forth in sec. 66.016 (2) (d), Stats., providing: “(d) Impact on the metropolitan community. The effect upon the future rendering of governmental services both inside the territory proposed for incorporation and elsewhere within the metropolitan community. There shall be an express finding that the proposed incorporation will not substantially hinder the solution of governmental problems affecting the metropolitan community.”

 Hixon v. Public Service Comm. (1966), 32 Wis. 2d 608, 621, 146 N. W. 2d 577.

 Id. at page 622.

 Askwaubenon v. State Highway Commission, supra, footnote 8, at page 127.

 See: Margoles v. State Board of Medical Examiners (1970), 47 Wis. 2d 499, 508, 177 N. W. 2d 353, this court stating: “The *483wisdom of attempting to draw a legislative-judicial distinction in administrative agency cases was criticized by Professor Kenneth Davis in The Requirement of a Trial-Type Hearing, 70 Harv. L. Kev. (1956), 193, 202:
“ ‘One obvious reason why whole proceedings cannot properly be labeled “judicial” or “legislative” is that in a single proceeding a tribunal commonly acts both judicially and legislatively. The processes of resolving disputed facts about particular parties is the essence of the judicial process and calls for a trial type hearing.’” See also: Id. at page 200, the author stating: “. . . in the borderland between the two categories the line is sometimes difficult or impossible to draw, and ... in the borderland the distinction often has little or no utility.” ,

 See: In re Incorporation of Village of North Milwaukee (1896), 93 Wis. 616, 622, 67 N. W. 1033, this court holding: “ ‘The legislature cannot delegate its power to make a law, but it can make a law to delegate a power to determine some fact or state of facts upon which the law makes, or intends to make, its own action depend.’” (Quoting Dowling v. Lancashire Ins. Co. (1896), 92 Wis. 63, 69, 65 N. W. 738.) See also: Schmidt v. Local Affairs & Development Dept. (1968), 39 Wis. 2d 46, 60, 158 N. W. 2d 306, *484adding, “The legislature should not be required to make specific provisions with regard to all of the items it felt necessary to be considered. Each incorporation will differ on its facts and the administrative director determines only whether these facts come within the legislative standards.”