Wisconsin Supreme Court Accepts Five New Cases for Review, Including Challenge to a Prison Discliplinary Action

Supreme Court sealThe Wisconsin Supreme Court has accepted five new cases for review, including a case that will focus on the fairness of prison disciplinary proceedings following a prison riot.

In Brunton v. Nuvell Credit Corp., the court will determine whether a defendant waived a challenge to improper venue under Wisconsin Statute section 421.401, the venue provision of the Wisconsin Consumer Act.  The plaintiff in the action admits that the case was brought in an improper venue (Dane County), but section 421.401 contemplates that a defendant may “appear[] and waive[] the improper venue.”   The defendant did appear, and litigated the case for over a year before filing its motion for summary judgment on jurisdictional grounds due to the improper venue.  The plaintiff argues that the defendant’s appearance and litigation activity constituted a waiver of the venue challenge.  The court will determine whether a waiver did take place within the meaning of section 421.401.

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Wisconsin Court Affirms Arbitration Award of Reinstatement

In a very interesting decision by the Wisconsin Court of Appeals last week, the Court upheld an arbitration award against the large household goods store Menard’s for employment discrimination against, wait for it, its own in-house lawyer.  As reported in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel,

Menard Inc. must reinstate a woman it fired as vice president and general counsel over a pay dispute, 3rd District judges for the state Court of Appeals said in a decision released Tuesday.

Dawn M. Sands filed a lawsuit in Eau Claire County citing the Equal Pay Act, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and the Wisconsin Fair Employment Act. She claimed gender-based pay discrimination, asserting that similarly situated male employees were paid more.

A three-person arbitration panel found in her favor and awarded compensatory and punitive damages. The panel also ordered Menard to reinstate Sands with a specific salary and bonus. Menard balked and asked the appellate court to overturn an order by Eau Claire Circuit Judge Paul J. Lenz that had upheld the arbitration panel.

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Stealthy or Shifty Tort Change

Much media has been given to the so-called “stimulus package” recently passed and signed into law without members of Congress or the President knowing fully what was contained in the over 1500 pages.  Evidently, no one read the whole bill before taking the decisive action.

A similar approach seems to be occurring here in Wisconsin.  Buried in the governor’s budget bill (A 75 2009-2010 Legislature), at pages 1588 and 1605, are significant modifications of state tort law that have as much to do with the state budget as chewing gum has to do with nuclear fusion.

Section 3223 of the bill contains a provision requiring the court to explain to a jury “the effect on awards and liabilities of the percentage of negligence found by the jury to be attributable to each party.”  Translation: “If you find the plaintiff more negligent than that rich old defendant, the plaintiff and his or her lawyer won’t recover a dime!”  Aren’t juries supposed to be finders of fact and not charity institutions?

Section 3271 of the bill changes the Wisconsin comparative negligence rule in two significant respects. 

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