William A. Bablitch

The case involved Michael and Brenda Yauger, who sued Skiing Enterprises, Inc. (Hidden Valley) for the wrongful death of their eleven-year-old daughter Tara after she collided with an unpadded concrete chair lift tower while skiing. Hidden Valley moved for summary judgment based on an exculpatory clause in the season ski pass application signed by Michael Yauger, which stated that the family agreed to hold Hidden Valley harmless for any injury from inherent risks in skiing. The circuit court granted summary judgment, and the court of appeals affirmed, finding the clause enforceable. The Wisconsin Supreme Court reversed, holding that the waiver was void as against public policy because it did not clearly, unambiguously, and unmistakably inform the signer that he was releasing Hidden Valley from liability for its own negligence, and the form as a whole did not sufficiently alert the signer to the waiver's nature and significance.

torts & liability

The case involved whether a police officer had reasonable suspicion to conduct an investigative stop of Johnny Waldner after observing his unusual driving and actions at 12:30 a.m., which led to his arrest for operating while intoxicated. The circuit court denied the motion to suppress, but the court of appeals reversed, finding insufficient facts for reasonable suspicion. The Wisconsin Supreme Court reversed the court of appeals, holding that the totality of the circumstances—including slow driving, abrupt acceleration, stopping without a sign, and pouring liquid from a cup—provided specific, articulable facts supporting a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, justifying the stop under Terry v. Ohio and Wis. Stat. § 968.24.

criminal lawprocedure

The case concerned whether personnel records of a public school employee and his personal telephone records, both subpoenaed by a district attorney's office during a criminal investigation into alleged sexual contact with a minor that was later dismissed, were exempt from Wisconsin's open records law. The Wisconsin Supreme Court held that the open records law provides no blanket exemption for public employee personnel records or the telephone records held by the district attorney, so the records are subject to public disclosure unless an overriding public interest requires confidentiality. The court further held that the district attorney's decision to release materials gathered in a criminal investigation is subject to de novo judicial review by the circuit court. The reasoning relied on prior precedent requiring a case-by-case balancing test rather than categorical exemptions, and on special public policy considerations arising when a prosecutor seeks to release investigative materials.

criminal lawcivil rightsprocedure

The case involved Anthony Hicks, who was convicted of burglary, robbery, and two counts of second-degree sexual assault based on the victim's identification and microscopic hair comparisons linking him to the crime scene. The Wisconsin Supreme Court affirmed the court of appeals' reversal of the conviction but on different grounds, holding that Hicks should receive a new trial in the interest of justice under Wis. Stat. § 751.06 because the real controversy of identification was not fully tried. The court reasoned that post-trial DNA evidence excluding Hicks as the source of one pubic hair was relevant to identification, was not presented to the jury, and was instead countered by the State's repeated use of the hair evidence as affirmative proof of guilt, making it impossible to conclude the hair evidence played no role in the verdict.

criminal lawprocedure

The case concerned whether police officers executing a search warrant for evidence of felonious drug delivery must knock and announce their presence before entering the premises, or whether a blanket exception to that rule is permissible under the Fourth Amendment. Richards was convicted after officers entered his motel room without knocking or announcing and seized drugs; he argued the evidence should be suppressed. The Wisconsin Supreme Court held that officers are not required to knock and announce in such cases. It reasoned that exigent circumstances are always present in drug delivery searches due to the high risk of violence against officers and the potential for evidence destruction, outweighing the occupants' minimal privacy interests. The court reaffirmed its prior precedent in State v. Stevens as consistent with the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Wilson v. Arkansas.

criminal lawprocedurecivil rights

The case concerned whether a circuit court could enter judgment on a forfeited bail order without a motion from the district attorney when the defendant appeared within 30 days under Wis. Stat. § 969.13(4). Chad Achterberg missed a court date on a concealed weapon misdemeanor charge, leading to forfeiture of his $500 bail; he later appeared and sought reinstatement, citing custody in another county, but the district attorney took no position and the court denied the request due to a prior missed appearance. The court of appeals affirmed, and the Wisconsin Supreme Court held that circuit courts retain discretion to enforce bail forfeitures when justice requires, even without a district attorney motion, and that the lower court properly exercised that discretion.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involved Keric DeChant, who was insured under a disability policy issued by Monarch Life Insurance Company and who sued for breach of contract and bad faith after Monarch changed his status from totally disabled to residually disabled, ending his benefits despite earlier representations. DeChant had obtained a preliminary injunction requiring Monarch to resume payments and posted a bond to secure it, then incurred substantial attorney's fees prosecuting the claims. The Supreme Court of Wisconsin held that attorney's fees and bond premiums are recoverable as compensatory damages in a first-party bad faith action because they flow directly from the insurer's bad faith conduct that forced the insured to litigate to obtain policy benefits. The court further held that expert testimony is not required to prove bad faith in this case. The jury's findings of breach and bad faith, along with associated damages including punitive damages, were upheld on the certified issues.

business & regulatorytorts & liability

This case concerns legislation that required Milwaukee County to transfer employer pension contributions made on behalf of certain non-vested assistant district attorneys from the county retirement system to the state retirement system, along with granting them prior service credit. Milwaukee County challenged the transfer as an unconstitutional taking of funds held in trust for vested employees and retirees. The Wisconsin Supreme Court held that the legislation violated due process by confiscating protectable property interests in the retirement funds. The court reasoned that while legislative modifications to pension plans may sometimes be permissible, the direct transfer of trust assets here amounted to an improper taking of vested interests without due process.

labor & employmentpropertycivil rights

In Brandmiller v. Arreola, plaintiffs challenged the constitutionality of municipal "cruising" ordinances prohibiting drivers from passing a designated traffic control point more than twice in any two-hour period on specified streets, claiming the rules violated the fundamental right to travel and were overbroad. The Wisconsin Supreme Court recognized a fundamental right to intrastate travel under the state constitution but upheld the ordinances as valid time, place, and manner restrictions that did not unreasonably burden that right. The court further held that the ordinances were not overbroad, noting they included exceptions for business, emergency, and governmental vehicles and were justified by findings of traffic congestion, noise, pollution, and impeded emergency access.

civil rights

In Hughes v. Chrysler Motors Corp., the plaintiff purchased a new Dodge Caravan that developed repeated transmission defects, and after the manufacturer failed to respond within the 30-day statutory deadline to a demand for replacement under Wisconsin's lemon law, the plaintiff sued for damages. The circuit court granted summary judgment and awarded double the purchase price as pecuniary damages, plus attorney fees and interest; the court of appeals affirmed, and the Wisconsin Supreme Court granted review. The supreme court held that the purchase price qualifies as pecuniary damages subject to doubling under Wis. Stat. § 218.015(7), affirming the judgment in full. The court reached this conclusion by examining the statute's text, purpose, and legislative history, which showed an intent to restore consumers to their expected position and deter manufacturer delays. The court also upheld the attorney-fee award as within the trial court's discretion after a detailed review.

business & regulatory

The case concerned whether notices of claim filed by a minor and his parents against state mental health institute employees for injuries sustained during supervised activities complied with Wis. Stat. § 893.82(5), which requires such notices to be "sworn to" before suit can proceed. The circuit court granted the state's motion for judgment on the pleadings, finding the notices defective, and a majority of the court of appeals affirmed; the Wisconsin Supreme Court likewise affirmed. The court held that "sworn to" requires claimants to make an oath or affirmation as to the truth of the notice contents and for the notice itself to state that this occurred, rejecting the plaintiffs' argument that signing before a notary public sufficed as it amounted only to an acknowledgment of signatures rather than an attestation of truthfulness. The decision rested on the plain language of the statute, legislative intent, and distinctions from related provisions on oaths and acknowledgments.

proceduretorts & liability

In Henes v. Morrissey, two sheriff's deputies stopped Joseph Henes late at night near the site of a reported car theft, questioned him as a possible suspect, and arrested him for obstruction under Wisconsin law after he refused to provide his name. Henes sued the deputies under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming the arrest violated his Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable seizure; the trial court and court of appeals rejected the deputies' qualified-immunity defense and found no probable cause for the arrest. The Wisconsin Supreme Court reversed, holding that the deputies were entitled to qualified immunity because existing precedent in 1991 did not clearly establish that an officer could not arrest a person for refusing to identify himself during a lawful investigatory stop. The court reasoned that cases such as Brown v. Texas and Michigan v. DeFillippo left the precise question unresolved, so a reasonable officer could have believed the arrest was lawful based on the information available at the time.

criminal lawcivil rights

This case involved a grandfather's petition to involuntarily terminate his daughter's parental rights to her child on grounds of abandonment after he and his wife took the child on a trip and relocated out of state without returning. The Wisconsin Supreme Court addressed whether, under the relevant statutes, establishing the basic facts of abandonment by clear and convincing evidence shifts the burden to the parent to rebut by showing she had not disassociated from the child or relinquished responsibility for the child's care. The court concluded that the burden does shift once abandonment is proven, but held that the parent need only meet that burden by a preponderance of the evidence rather than clear and convincing evidence. It therefore affirmed the court of appeals' reversal of the jury verdict and remand for a new trial, though on a different evidentiary standard. The decision rested on de novo interpretation of Wis. Stat. § 48.415(1)(a)3 and (c).

family lawprocedure

This case involved a dispute between Price County Sheriff Wayne Wirsing and former deputy Richard Heitkemper, who had run against Wirsing in an election; after Wirsing declined to reappoint Heitkemper as deputy, Heitkemper filed a grievance under the county's collective bargaining agreement with the deputies' union alleging lack of just cause for dismissal. A personnel committee consolidated proceedings and ordered a 65-day suspension without pay followed by reinstatement, but Wirsing refused to comply, asserting his constitutional and statutory authority as sheriff. The circuit court issued a writ of mandamus requiring compliance with the agreement, and the Wisconsin Supreme Court affirmed that judgment. The court held that the sheriff's powers to dismiss and demote deputies are not constitutionally protected core functions of the office and that the collective bargaining agreement does not conflict with the sheriff's statutory appointment authority under secs. 59.21(1) and (4), Stats.

labor & employment

In State v. Marks, the Wisconsin Supreme Court addressed whether an accomplice who had already pled guilty and been sentenced for burglary could invoke the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination to avoid testifying at the defendant's trial, allowing his preliminary hearing testimony to be admitted instead. The circuit court declared the accomplice unavailable and permitted the prior testimony, leading to Marks' conviction, and the court of appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court held that the privilege can extend beyond sentencing if the witness has a real and appreciable fear of further self-incrimination, such as through sentence modification proceedings. However, it concluded that the lower court erred by declaring the accomplice unavailable without sufficient inquiry into the basis and validity of the claimed privilege. The case was remanded for further proceedings to determine whether the fear was genuine before addressing the confrontation clause implications.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involved Joseph Wills, who pled no contest to first-degree intentional homicide under a plea agreement in which the State agreed to recommend that the parole commission, rather than the sentencing court, determine his parole eligibility. The prosecutor responded to the court's invitation for arguments on its sentencing discretion under the relevant statute with a letter that Wills claimed breached the agreement, resulting in the court setting a specific parole eligibility date. The circuit court found no breach and denied resentencing, but the court of appeals held that the prosecutor had violated the agreement. Being equally divided on the breach question, the Wisconsin Supreme Court affirmed the court of appeals' decision on that issue and held that the standard of appellate review depends on the circumstances: disputed factual findings are reviewed under the clearly erroneous standard, while purely legal questions of whether facts constitute a breach are reviewed de novo.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involved taxpayers who sued the Director of the Wisconsin Department of Revenue, claiming that manufacturer's rebates received on new automobile purchases should not have been included in the base for the state's five percent sales tax and seeking refunds along with injunctive and declaratory relief under 42 U.S.C. sec. 1983. At the time of filing, the governing statute, sec. 77.59(4), allowed refund claims only by those who had directly paid the taxes to the state, but the statute was later amended effective September 1, 1994, to permit buyers to file claims of at least $50 within the applicable four-year period. The complaint did not specify the amounts of the taxpayers' claims or the dates they accrued, preventing a determination of whether the amended statute provided a remedy or how to handle any smaller claims. The court therefore reversed the decision of the court of appeals and remanded the case to the circuit court with directions to allow the taxpayers to amend their complaint and to conduct further proceedings under the 1993-94 version of the statute.

taxesprocedure

In State v. Avila, the defendant appealed his convictions for possession of controlled substances and related charges, raising claims that he was denied equal protection by not receiving credit for pretrial jail time served due to indigency against a probation condition, that he was entitled to credit under statute for prison time served before his plea was withdrawn, that the reasonable doubt jury instruction was unconstitutional, and that the jury was improperly instructed on a weapons penalty enhancer. The court held that the credit issues were moot because Avila had completed his probation condition but addressed them anyway, affirmed the circuit court's denial of the requested credits and upheld the jury instruction, but reversed the weapons-enhanced conviction. It remanded for a new trial on whether Avila possessed a dangerous weapon while committing the drug offense and for resentencing on the underlying charge, reasoning that the enhancer requires proof of actual possession and proper jury instruction per prior precedent, while finding no equal protection violation or statutory entitlement to the other credits.

criminal lawprocedurecivil rights

In this medical malpractice case, 14-year-old Cheryl Martin suffered permanent brain injuries after a bicycle accident when intracranial bleeding developed hours after her admission to Fort Atkinson Memorial Hospital; her father alleged that emergency room physician Dr. Richards failed to disclose the availability of an on-site CT scanner for diagnosis or the need for transfer to another facility lacking a neurosurgeon. The Wisconsin Supreme Court held that sec. 448.30 required Dr. Richards to inform the father of these facts as part of the informed consent obligation, that Dr. Hansen had no such duty because he lacked direct involvement, and that the parties had waived any separate causation question in the verdict. The court further ruled the retroactive statutory cap on noneconomic damages unconstitutional under the state constitution because it altered substantive rights without sufficient justification. It therefore affirmed the full damages award against the applicable defendants.

torts & liabilityhealthcareprocedure

In State v. Thiel, Jeffrey Thiel, convicted of a felony in 1970 with civil rights restored in 1972, challenged the application of a 1981 Wisconsin statute (sec. 941.29) prohibiting convicted felons from possessing firearms after it was used to modify his sentence following a 1992 misdemeanor conviction. Thiel argued that the law retroactively punished him in violation of the Ex Post Facto Clause of the Wisconsin Constitution. The Wisconsin Supreme Court affirmed the court of appeals, holding that the statute does not violate the Ex Post Facto Clause as applied to Thiel. The court reasoned that the restriction was enacted to protect public safety through firearm regulation rather than to impose punishment, based on the statute's structure and its application to other categories of individuals such as those found not guilty by reason of insanity.

criminal lawguns