Dawson v. Town of Jackson

Summary

The Wisconsin Supreme Court interprets the phrase "acting together" in Wis. Stat. § 82.21(2), which governs municipal decisions concerning highways located on or across municipal boundaries. The court holds that separate municipal votes may not be aggregated and that approval by both governing bodies is required. It further concludes that certiorari review under Wis. Stat. § 68.13, rather than a declaratory judgment action, was the prescribed method for challenging the refusal to issue a highway order.

Holdings

1. The phrase acting together is ambiguous and does not require separate votes of two governing bodies to be counted in the aggregate as if the bodies voted as one. Approval by both governing bodies is necessary to approve a joint application to lay out, alter, or discontinue a highway on or across municipal lines.
2. Wis. Stat. § 82.15 contemplates statutory certiorari review under Wis. Stat. § 68.13 as the prescribed method for reviewing a highway order or refusal to issue a highway order. The Dawsons should have proceeded under that method rather than seeking a declaratory judgment, and their action was untimely.
3. The supreme court could address the legal interpretation issue despite concluding that the declaratory-judgment action should have been dismissed as untimely under the statutory certiorari procedure.

Questions Presented

1. Whether Wis. Stat. § 82.21(2)'s requirement that municipal governing bodies act together requires their separate votes on a town-line highway application to be aggregated as if the bodies were one board.
2. Whether Wis. Stat. § 82.15 requires a party challenging a highway order or refusal to issue one to proceed by statutory certiorari under Wis. Stat. § 68.13 rather than by declaratory judgment.
3. Whether the supreme court should address Cedarburg's equitable-estoppel argument.

Disposition

reversed