June 11, 2025 – No specific burden of proof applies when a circuit court decides whether termination of parental rights (TPR) is in the best interest of the child, the Wisconsin Supreme Court decided recently in

State v. H.C., 2025 WI 20. In unanimously affirming the TPR against H.C., the majority opinion written by Justice Rebecca Grassl Bradley explained, “we hold the best interests of the child governing the dispositional phase of a TPR proceeding constitutes a discretionary…
Continue Reading Wisconsin Supreme Court: No Burden of Proof at TPR Disposition

June 4, 2025 – A 5-2 majority of the Wisconsin Supreme Court decided Friday in

Hubbard v. Neuman, 2025 WI 15, that a patient’s informed consent complaint against her doctor could proceed even though the doctor didn’t participate in the surgery that resulted in the patient’​s ovaries being removed. “Taking [Melissa] Hubbard’s allegations as true and drawing all reasonable inferences from a required liberal construction of those allegations, we determine Dr. Neuman failed to show that under no…
Continue Reading Supreme Court: Doctor Potentially Liable Even if Not Physically Present

May 19, 2025 – A Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) permit did not need to require supplementary battery storage for a new natural gas-fired electric generating plant, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals decided Thursday in
Sierra Club v. DNR, No. 2024AP673 (May 15, 2025). The court remanded the permit to DNR because part of the permit’s basis comes from the agency’s Background Concentration Protocol, which the court held was an unpromulgated rule – created outside the required…
Continue Reading Court of Appeals: Gas-Fired Power Plant Rule Requires Remand

May 13, 2025 – Three victims of a violent 2015 hostage-taking in Neenah recently lost their Fourth Amendment claims before a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, in Moderson v. City of Neenah, No. 23-2843 (May 9, 2025).

In a decision written by Circuit Judge Candace Jackson-Akiwumi and joined by Judges Frank H. Easterbrook and Ilana Diamond Rovner, the dangerous crime scene made brief seizures reasonable even when two victims were handcuffed…
Continue Reading Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals: Rough Handling Not Wrongful Seizure

May 2, 2025 – The partial veto power extends to allow Gov. Tony Evers to change a biennial budget provision to last 402 years, a 4-3 majority of the Wisconsin Supreme Court recently held in LeMieux v. Evers, 2025 WI 12.

The dissent found this partial veto problem greater than the acts of the current governor – 49 years of supreme court decisions strayed from the constitution, necessitating correction.

Revenue Increase Through 2425

In the 2023-25 biennial budget,…
Continue Reading Constitution Allows Partial Veto Fixing Biennial Budget Increase for 402 Years

April 9, 2025 – The Wisconsin Supreme Court became the ultimate referee Tuesday in deciding 5-2 in Halter v. Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association (WIAA), 2025 WI 10 that the WIAA acted reasonably in suspending high school wrestler Hayden Halter for unsportsmanlike conduct.

However, four justices didn’t think the case fit the supreme court’s docket. Justice Janet C. Protasiewicz, joined by Justice Jill J. Karofsky, concurred with the majority but concluded that the WIAA, a private, contractual organization, was not…
Continue Reading Wisconsin Supreme Court Denies Wrestler's Suspension Challenge

April 3, 2025 – The 19-year appeal odyssey of Jacob Alan Powers may have ended last week when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit decided in
Powers v. Noble, No. 24-2134 (March 25, 2025) that Powers was competent at his 2006 trial. The result of the federal habeas corpus review stretched out because of changes in the arguments Powers made. But the final arguments ended where they began, arguing that he was not competent to…
Continue Reading Seventh Circuit: Competency Shown Over Mental Health Limitations

April 2, 2025 – An appellate fast break by the Wisconsin Attorney General last weekend failed to net an emergency injunction, and Elon Musk gave away $2 million from his America PAC at his Sunday evening rally. Attorney General Josh Kaul sought the preliminary injunction because his office believed the planned giveaway violated statutory prohibitions in Wis. Stat. section 12.11(1m) on giving anything of value to encourage voting, in this instance, yesterday’s Supreme Court election. Musk has shown support…
Continue Reading Election-Related Injunction Fails at Wisconsin Supreme Court

  March 26, 2025 – Three ballots lacking two initials from election officials, which if rejected would have changed the winner, remained effective under current election statutes, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals District IV decided in Gonfiantini v. Rock County Board of Canvassers (Board), No. 2024AP1233 (March 6, 2025), recommended for publication. Not only did state statutes, as amended through the past 60 years, show that the error alone doesn’t justify rejecting the ballots, the court held the candidate’s…
Continue Reading Court of Appeals: Statutes Didn’t Allow Rejection for Ballot Error

Feb. 28, 2025 – A pandemic-era law that granted immunity to health care providers for medical malpractice claims during the COVID-19 state of emergency unconstitutionally deprived individual liberties, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals District I held in Wren v. Columbia St. Mary’s Hospital Milwaukee, Inc., No. 2024AP126 (Feb. 11, 2025).

“While we acknowledge that the health care system faced unique challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic, ‘[t]here is no pandemic exception … to the fundamental liberties the [c]onstitution safeguards,”…
Continue Reading Appeals Court: Pandemic Medical Malpractice Immunity Unconstitutional

Feb. 28, 2025 – Wisconsin’s Minority Undergraduate Retention Grant program established in 1985 unconstitutionally discriminates against students of races excluded from the program, a Wisconsin Court of Appeals District II panel on Wednesday unanimously decided in an opinion recommended for publication. The result in Rabiebna v. Higher Educational Aids Board (HEAB), No. 2022AP2026 (Feb. 26, 2025) applied Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. (SFFA) v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, 600 U.S. 181 (2023), which struck down…
Continue Reading Wisconsin Minority Undergraduate Grant Program Unconstitutional

Feb. 18, 2025 – “Aggrieved” meant something different to the Wisconsin Supreme Court majority and dissent in Brown v. Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC), 2025 WI 5 (Feb. 18, 2025), leaving a citizen who complained to the WEC about the city of Racine’s alternate absentee voting sites without judicial review.

In an opinion written by Justice Jill J. Karofsky, the 4-3 majority held that the standard definition of “aggrieved,” unless the Legislature specifies differently, required an individual have “an…
Continue Reading Supreme Court: Complainant to Wisconsin Elections Commission Lacked Standing