Wisconsin Supreme Court Update: July & August 2023

• Published date: 28 July 2023
• Subject Matter: Litigation, Mediation & Arbitration, Tax, Court Procedure, Property Taxes
• Law Firm: Meissner Tierney Fisher & Nichols
• Author: Mr Caleb R. Gerbitz

The Wisconsin Supreme Court finished up its 2023-24 term in June, issuing a slew of new decisions and granting review in one new case for next term. In this update, we take a closer look at the civil cases the court decided to round out the term.

Cases Decided

Allsop Venture Partners III v. Murphy Desmond SC, No. 2020AP806

Evidence

Decision Filed: June 2, 2023

Public Citation: 2023 WI 43

Practice pointer: Take caution when entering a settlement agreement that involves a Pierringer release. The settlement might be admissible. The dispute in this case flowed from a complex commercial transaction where the plaintiff incurred significant tax penalties due to faulty tax advice provided by several defendants. The plaintiffs settled with some of the defendants via Pierringer releases, leaving only legal malpractice claims against Murphy Desmond. At trial, the circuit court admitted evidence that other firms were formerly named as defendants and had settled with the plaintiffs. In a 4-3 decision by Justice Hagedorn, the court upheld the circuit court's admission of settlement evidence under Wis. Stat. ' 904.08. That statute says that settlement evidence "is not admissible to prove liability for or invalidity of the claim or its amount," but it may be offered "for another purpose, such as proving bias or prejudice of a witness." Relying on a case from 2000, the court held that the settlement evidence was admissible here to show that the litigation "posture of a settling party was significantly different as a result of the settlement." Here, the circuit court reasonably concluded that the settlement prompted the plaintiff to change its litigation posture, so it was not error to admit the evidence. Chief Justice Ziegler authored a dissent, joined by Justices Roggensack and Rebecca Grassl Bradley, arguing that admission of settlement evidence to prove a change in litigation posture would swallow the rule against admission of settlement evidence.

Miller v. Zoning Board of Appeals of the Village of Lyndon Station, No. 2021AP1764

Zoning

Decision Filed: June 6, 2023

Public Citation: 2023 WI 46

This case presented the question of whether a mom, who happened to be on the village board, could vote on whether to rezone a parcel of property owned by her daughter. A village resident brought a due process challenge to the village's decision to rezone a parcel owned by a daughter of the village board member to allow commercial development on the property. Naturally, the...