Courts sometimes adopt highly counterintuitive interpretations of words. In 2022, a California court infamously ruled that bees qualified as fish. Today, at Sojenhomer v. Village of Egg HarborThe Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that sidewalks are not “pedestrian-only streets.” So while state laws prohibit the use of eminent domain to dedicate property to “sidewalks,” they enable local governments to use eminent domain to condemn properties for sidewalks.[s]”The close 4-3 decision will likely become a staple in law school textbooks.
It seems obvious that sidewalks are actually sidewalks. In fact, as the court noted, the relevant statute defines a “pedestrian walk” as “a footpath designated for use.”
Pedestrian travel.
But Justice Rebecca Frank Dallet’s majority opinion emphasized that “[t]The ordinary meaning of a statute is determined by more than just the literal meaning of a single phrase read in isolation.
Reading through the full text of this section, we find some indication that the definition of pedestrian access does not include sidewalks. First, both § 346.02(8)(a) and (b) use the terms “sidewalk” and “sidewalk” in a manner that indicates that each term has a separate, nonoverlapping meaning….
Section 346.02(8)(b) provides that sidewalks shall be treated “like” sidewalks for utility installation and evaluation purposes. The word “as if” means that one category (sidewalks) should be treated the same as another category (sidewalks)….
The wording of § 346.02(8)(a) also indicates that the sidewalk is not a sidewalk. This paragraph makes the rules of the road relating to footpaths also applicable to footpaths. But if the sidewalk is a sidewalk, then the rules of the road that apply to sidewalks already apply to sidewalks. To be clear, the point here is not to read the word “sidewalk” to include sidewalks
leading to excess…
These arguments are clever. But I don’t think they overcome the definition of “footpath” as spelled out in the statute text: “a walking path designated for use”
Pedestrian travel. “When the Legislature specifically defines a term, that definition trumps any indirect contextual inferences a judge can draw from other passages of the law.”
Sometimes a term may have a technical meaning in a statute that is different from its ordinary language meaning. But that’s not the case here. The Legislature specifically defined the term to prevent it from being interpreted as a convoluted “term of art.”
Furthermore, Chief Justice Annette Kingsland Ziegler effectively addressed what the majority found to be a seemingly unusual situation:
The plain language of the statute indicates that the term “sidewalk” is broadly defined to include sidewalks. Sidewalks—the portions of highways built for people to walk—are obviously a subset of sidewalks—sidewalks that are provided or designated for pedestrian travel. This is a simple, common-sense interpretation of the statutory language, which states that a “walkway designated for pedestrian travel” necessarily includes portions of a highway “constructed for the use of pedestrians…”
[I]In other words, a closer look at the plain meaning of these regulations reveals that all
Sidewalks are sidewalks, but not all sidewalks are sidewalks….I acknowledge the Wisconsin Bureau of Statistics. § 346.02(8) uses both the term “sidewalk” and the term “pedestrian” in two very close separate sentences. And in some
In some cases, these things may indicate that these terms have completely different meanings. But there is a logical answer to this hypothesis: a sidewalk is always a sidewalk, but the word “sidewalk” is broader than just a sidewalk…
Once you realize that “all sidewalks are sidewalks, but not all sidewalks are sidewalks,” there is no mystery created by the statutory language, for example, that a sidewalk must be “deemed” a sidewalk. The implication of this section is that the rules that apply to sidewalks also apply to sidewalks, even those no sidewalk. And, as the Chief Justice noted, the latter category includes many things, such as “pedestrian bridges or walking paths in parks not adjacent to highways.”
I would add that the context of eminent domain is also worth noting here. In Wisconsin, as in many other states, statutes granting eminent domain power must be “strictly construed” against the government. As a previous Wisconsin Supreme Court decision noted, courts must “strictly interpret the condemner’s power… while liberally interpreting
Provisions favorable to landowners.
The majority rejected the rule’s application here because they claimed the statute was “unambiguous” and made clear that the government could use eminent domain to condemn property for sidewalks. This statement is obviously wrong. It would take extremely complex legal reasoning to conclude that sidewalks are somehow not “pedestrians”: the kind of legalistic mumbo-jumbo that leads people to hate lawyers!
Counter-intuitive technical legal reasoning has its place. But the Wisconsin Supreme Court was wrong to deploy it here.
While the outcome of this decision is questionable, it could be a useful teaching tool for law professors. In order to get around the obvious importance of the text, most have resorted to a variety of complex arguments, not all of which I have covered here. Objections have good answers to them. This case can help students understand the various ways in which judges can use context to circumvent the seemingly clear meaning of a text. But I think the majority opinion is ultimately just an example no Do it.
