April 17, 2024 – A selection of recent Wisconsin case verdicts are shared below. The information is provided as a service to State Bar of Wisconsin members in cooperation with Westlaw's® West's Jury Verdicts – Wisconsin Reports, a Thomson Reuters business. Featured Cases Seefeld v. 3701 Humbolt LLC (Wis. Cir. Ct. - Milwaukee) Premises Liability - Settlement: $100,000 Plaintiff Recovers $100K Following Slip, Fall Accident in Icy Parking Lot in Milwaukee Case Summary: 2022 WL 22292668 Request 1 Free Case Summary by E-mail Plaintiff's complaint: 2020 WL 13862733 Decision and order granting moti ..read more

April 17, 2024 – Whether you want to grow your practice with new clients, add a new area of practice, or expand into another market, the State Bar of Wisconsin’s Lawyer Referral and Information Service (LRIS) connects lawyers with prescreened clients who have indicated a willingness and ability to pay for your legal services. LRIS is looking for lawyers of all levels of experience for its referral service. Memberships run annually from July 1 to June 30. Join now through June 2024, and receive registration free for April, May, and June this year. LRIS Helps Access to the Legal System A member ..read more

April 17, 2024 – An innovative CLE scheduled for May 31 will help attorneys boost their emotional IQ and learn to better handle clients’ mental health issues. Jennifer Mohamed, a practicing attorney, yoga teacher, and wellness retreat leader, is scheduled to be one of the presenters at the May 31 event at the State Bar Center in Madison, from 9 a.m. to 4:35 p.m. “Clients who challenge us emotionally can have a real effect on our relationship with them and our positivity for the work,” Mohamed said. “We have to understand not only the big facts and the big picture but the nuances, the ‘Why’ an ..read more

Retired Rock County Circuit Court Judge James Daley is the 2024 Lifetime Jurist. April 17, 2024 – It was out of frustration that Judge James P. Daley enrolled in law school. As a young man, he joined the Chicago Northwestern Railroad Police in Milwaukee. “I worked four years as a special agent. We had responsibility for crimes on or around railroad property,” he said. Working with fellow officers, he broke up a large theft ring that was taking wheels and parts off new vehicles being shipped via the railroad. “We arrested two ringleaders and four or five other folks,” he said. But when the c ..read more

April 16, 2024 – A federal law prohibits a divorce court from dividing miliary disability pay that a veteran opts to receive instead of retirement pay, the Wisconsin Count of Appeals (District II) has ruled. In a per curiam opinion, the Court of Appeals in DeWeese v. McLin, 2023AP565 (April 3, 2024) also held that the circuit court’s “purge order” involving the arrearages tied to the disability pay was erroneous. In 1997, Sherry DeWees and Timothy McLin were married in Wisconsin. The couple divorced in North Carolina in 2011. At the time of the divorce, McLin was on active duty with the U.S ..read more

April 15, 2024 – A driver’s red eyes, slow speech, and freshly lit cigarette gave a police officer reasonable suspicion to expand a traffic stop to field sobriety tests (FST), the Wisconsin Court of Appeals (District III) has ruled in an unpublished opinion in State v. Johnson, 2022AP389 (April 2, 2024) On Jan. 19, 2020, Wisconsin State Trooper Steven Wojcik was on patrol in Eau Claire County. Wojcik got a dispatch about a gray Dodge Ram pickup truck speeding and weaving through traffic on Interstate 94. Wojcik clocked a gray Dodge pickup truck going 80 miles per hour (mph) in a 70-mph zone ..read more

April 15, 2024 – An insurance policy’s exception to an exclusion of liability was ambiguous because it lacked terms of geographic limitation while related exceptions contained such terms, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals has ruled. In Bolger v. Massachusetts Bay Insurance Company, 2022AP742 (March 26, 2024), the Court of Appeals (District III) held that because the exception was ambiguous, it must be interpreted against the insurer. In 2018, Massachusetts Bay Insurance Company (MBIC) issued a homeowner’s policy to Bret and Amy Achtenhagen. The policy ran from November 2018 to November 2019. The ..read more

April 15, 204 – A lawsuit alleging a breach of contract warranties was barred because it was filed beyond the survival date for the warranties specified in the contract, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals (District IV) has ruled in Ripp Distributing Company, Inc. v. Ruby Distribution LLC, 2023AP778 (March 21, 2024). In May 2020, Ripp Distributing Company, Inc. (Ripp) signed a contract to buy the assets of Ruby Distribution LLC (Ruby), a water cooler distribution company. Under the contract, Ruby agreed to sell, and Ripp agreed to buy, the following: equipment; inventory; accounts receivable ..read more

District 2 Governor Karen Bauer speaks during the State Bar of Wisconsin’s Board of Governor’s discussion on the proposed FY 2025 budget on Friday, April 12. April 12, 2024 – The State Bar of Wisconsin’s 52-member Board of Governors approved the fiscal year 2025 (July 1, 2024 to June 30, 2025) budget at its meeting on Friday, April 12. Paul Marshall, the State Bar’s chief financial officer, said that the initial submission of the FY 2025 budget revealed that the State Bar faced a budget gap of about $760,000 (operational revenue minus operational expenses). Before taking the proposed budget ..read more

For the past several years, Wisconsin has ranked near the top of the country for racial disparity in nearly every category related to the juvenile justice system.1 State and national trends also support that there is a particular group of youth of color that are uniquely susceptible to involvement in the juvenile justice system: those who have a disability. Nationally, children with disabilities are removed from school and referred to and involved in the juvenile justice system at higher rates than youth without disabilities. Disproportionality for these children applies at each stage of the ..read more