Stockbridge School Dist. v. Department of Public Instruction School Dist. Boundary Appeal Bd.

• Decision Date: 25 June 1996
• Docket Number: No. 94-1867,94-1867
• Parties: , 110 Ed. Law Rep. 847 STOCKBRIDGE SCHOOL DISTRICT, Petitioner-Appellant-Petitioner, v. DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION SCHOOL DISTRICT BOUNDARY APPEAL BOARD, Respondent-Respondent.
• Court: Wisconsin Supreme Court

Page 96

550 N.W.2d 96

202 Wis.2d 214, 110 Ed. Law Rep. 847

STOCKBRIDGE SCHOOL DISTRICT, Petitioner-Appellant-Petitioner, v. DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION SCHOOL DISTRICT BOUNDARY

APPEAL BOARD, Respondent-Respondent.

No. 94-1867.

Supreme Court of Wisconsin.

Argued May 3, 1996.

Decided June 25, 1996.

For the petitioner-appellant-petitioner there were briefs by Robert W. Burns, Thomas E. Griggs, Paul C. Hemmer and Godfrey & Kahn, S.C., Green Bay and oral argument by Thomas E. Griggs and Robert W. Burns.

For the respondent-respondent the cause was argued by Laura Sutherland, Assistant Attorney General, with whom on the brief was James E. Doyle, Attorney General.

ANN WALSH BRADLEY, Justice.

The petitioner, Stockbridge School District (Stockbridge), seeks review of a published decision of the court of appeals. ¹ That decision affirmed an order of the circuit court for Manitowoc County, Fred H. Hazlewood, Judge, which affirmed decisions of the respondent, Department of Public Instruction School District Boundary Appeal Board ("the Board"). Stockbridge argues that the Board exceeded its authority under Wis.Stat. § 117.12(1) (1993-94) ² when it ordered that parcels of property could be detached from Stockbridge and attached to adjoining school districts even though the parcels did not border those adjoining districts. Because we conclude thats 117.12(1) allows for the detachment of such "island" parcels, we affirm the decision of the court of appeals.

The relevant facts are undisputed. Residents of the Stockbridge School District filed petitions to detach their property from the district pursuant to Wis.Stat. § 117.12. ³ Twenty-one of the petitions sought attachment to the Chilton School District and the remaining petition sought attachment to the Hilbert School District. Both the Chilton and Hilbert school districts border Stockbridge.

The Chilton and Hilbert school boards approved the petitions, but Stockbridge denied them. The petitioners sought administrative appeal with the Board pursuant to Wis.Stat. §§ 117.12(4), (5). After conducting a hearing on the petitions, the Board established certain criteria to determine which petitioners would be permitted to detach their property from Stockbridge. ⁴ Based on these criteria, the Board granted portions of 15 of the petitions. In all, the Board ordered 46 parcels to be detached from Stockbridge; 44 to be attached to Chilton and two to Hilbert. Forty-one of these parcels are "island" parcels, meaning that they do not share a common boundary with the school district of attachment.

Stockbridge appealed the Board's orders to the Manitowoc County circuit court. ⁵ It argued that the Board lacked jurisdiction to order the detachment in part because: (1) the parcels to be detached had no common boundary with the proposed school district of attachment, contrary to § 117.12(1); and (2) one of the Board's orders was void because it included territory that was also included in a prior and pending appeal, contrary to Wis.Stat. § 117.05(4)(b)1. ⁶ Stockbridge also argued that the Board's actions were arbitrary and capricious. The circuit court affirmed the Board's orders. Stockbridge appealed, relying solely on its jurisdictional arguments. The court of appeals affirmed the circuit court's order.

The only issues courts may consider on appeals from school reorganizations are whether the Board acted within its jurisdiction and whether its order was arbitrary and capricious. Joint Sch. Dist. No. 2 v. State Appeal Bd., 83 Wis.2d 711, 720, 266 N.W.2d 374 (1978); Larson v. State Appeal Bd., 56 Wis.2d 823, 825, 202 N.W.2d 920 (1973). Because Stockbridge has abandoned its argument that the Board's actions were arbitrary and capricious, we limit our discussion to the jurisdictional arguments as presented by Stockbridge.

I.

We first address Stockbridge's argument that the Board can only exercise its jurisdiction to detach parcels from one district and attach them to another district under § 117.12, if the parcels to be detached border the school district of attachment. This requires us to interpret the language of § 117.12. The interpretation of a statute presents a question of law that this court reviews de novo. Town of Clearfield v. Cushman, 150 Wis.2d 10, 19, 440 N.W.2d 777 (1989). Our sole purpose when interpreting a statute is to ascertain the intent of the legislature. Marshall-Wis. v. Juneau Square Corp., 139 Wis.2d 112, 133, 406 N.W.2d 764 (1987). The proper method for doing so is well-established and was recently summarized by this court as follows:

This court's first resort is to the plain language of the statute itself. If the meaning of the statute is plain, we are prohibited from looking beyond the language to ascertain its meaning.... If and only if the language of the statute does not clearly or unambiguously set forth the legislative intent, however, will this court construe the statute so as to ascertain and carry out the legislative intent. In such case, we examine the history, context, subject matter, scope and object of the statute.

Jungbluth v. Hometown, Inc., 201 Wis.2d 320, ----, 548 N.W.2d 519 (1996).

The statutory language at issue states that § 117.12 "applies to the detachment of territory from one school district and its attachment to an adjoining school district...." § 117.12(1). Both Stockbridge and the Board contend that this language is clear on its face and, therefore, it is not necessary to engage in statutory construction to determine its meaning. ⁷ However, Stockbridge and the Board reach opposite results when interpreting the statute based on this plain meaning approach.

Stockbridge focusses on the word "attachment" to interpret the statute. It argues that because the plain meaning of attachment embodies the concept of physical connection, the statute mandates that territory to be detached from one school district must share a common boundary with the school district to which it is to be attached. ⁸ In contrast, the Board focusses on the word "adjoining" in its interpretation. It asserts that because the term "adjoining" modifies "school districts," not territory, the plain language of § 117.12(1) only requires that the two districts involved in the detachment and attachment of parcels share a common boundary.

The lower courts also disagreed on the proper interpretation of the statute. The circuit court interpreted the language using a plain meaning approach, but relied on a dictionary definition of attachment as referring to "attachment for an administrative or political purpose," not actual physical connection. The court of appeals concluded that the key to understanding § 117.12(1) is the word "adjoining" and not "attachment." According to the court of appeals, "[t]he real question posed by the statute as applied here is 'what must adjoin--the parcel and the attaching district or merely the two districts themselves?' " Stockbridge, 192 Wis.2d at 626, 531 N.W.2d 624.

Ambiguity arises where the language may be reasonably construed in two different ways. State ex rel. Girouard v. Circuit Court, 155 Wis.2d 148, 155, 454 N.W.2d 792 (1990). Although the mere fact that parties interpret a statute differently does not create ambiguity, this court has recognized that different yet equally reasonable interpretations by various decision-making bodies is indicative that a statute may support more than one reasonable interpretation. Harnischfeger Corp. v. LIRC, 196 Wis.2d 650, 662, 539 N.W.2d 98 (1995).

We are persuaded by the court of appeals' approach that the key to understanding the statute lies in the term "adjoining" rather than "attachment." Contrary to Stockbridge's plain meaning argument, the word "attachment" does not mandate an actual physical connection. As the circuit court recognized, "attachment" may reasonably indicate a connection for an administrative or political purpose, or an emotional bond by affection, sympathy, or loyalty. Further, Stockbridge's argument focusses only on the word attachment to the exclusion of the remaining language in the sentence. There is additional ambiguity when the sentence is considered in its entirety. We agree with the court of appeals that upon considering the word "adjoining," the statute is ambiguous because it may be reasonably interpreted in two different ways. The court of appeals aptly described the ambiguity as follows:

If we consider the phrase "its attachment to an adjoining school district," the antecedent of the possessive pronoun "its" appears to be "territory." From this, a reasonable reader could infer that the territory must adjoin the attaching school district. However, if we consider the obvious parallelism of the phrases "from one school district ... to an adjoining school district," then a reasonable reader could understand the statute to require that only the school districts themselves need adjoin.

Stockbridge Sch. Dist. v. Department of Public Instruction Sch. Dist. Boundary Appeal Bd., 192 Wis.2d 622, 626-27, 531 N.W.2d 624 (Ct.App.1995) (citations omitted).

Because we conclude that the statute is ambiguous, we next turn to extrinsic matters such as the statute's history, context, and object in order to ascertain the legislature's intent. Jungbluth, 201 Wis.2d at ----, 548 N.W.2d 519. Upon considering the parties' arguments regarding these statutory construction aids, we conclude, as did the court of appeals, that the legislative history of § 117.12 compels the conclusion that the statute does not require that the detaching parcel border the school district of attachment.

The court of appeals engaged in a comprehensive legislative history analysis of § 117.12 and its predecessors, which we briefly summarize here. The first statute that specifically addressed the detachment of small parcels, Wis.Stat. § 40.032 (1961-62), provided that property may be detached from one school district and attached to an adjoining school district "[i]f the owner of an...