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It is every student’s favorite time of the school year: Field trip season! However, for school districts across Wisconsin grappling with staffing challenges, field trips are additional areas of risk where student needs can go unmet. Such emerging needs might include accommodations for diabetes, the fastest growing chronic disease in children in the United States. On a national scale, from 2001 to 2017, the number of people under age 20 living with Type 1 diabetes increased by 45 percent.
Continue Reading Ride on the Magic School Bus: Navigating Student Needs with Staff Shortages

In the 2021-22 school year, the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction recorded 16,454 (nearly 2%) of students as being homeless. This is an increase from the 2020-21 school year, which recorded 13,431 (1.6%) of Wisconsin students as homeless. This already too-high number is likely an undercount, as “for a variety of reasons, some young people don’t report that they are homeless.”1 Homelessness for youth correlates to poorer outcomes for emotional and physical health, lower school achievement, and increased dropout…
Continue Reading The McKinney-Vento Act: Maximizing School Stability for Homeless Youth

It’s May 1st, which means it’s the beginning of construction safety week. It’s also the day those of us living in Wisconsin can begin to believe we won’t see snow again for at least a few months. And while we’re all looking forward to warmer days ahead, we also have to prepare for days that are too hot – and too many of those “too hot” days. Climate models indicate that Wisconsin is going to face many more days…
Continue Reading Keeping Construction Workers Safe in the Face of Climate Change and Extreme Heat

If you have been practicing law in Wisconsin, you may have thought about what it would require to practice law in a neighboring or other state as well.
Each state requires its own admission process set forth by supreme court or board of admission rules in that state. Most states allow for admission by motion, sometimes called reciprocity or comity, for practicing lawyers who have already been licensed for a certain number of years.
Kate Cook, Indiana 2012, is…
Continue Reading Thinking of Practicing Outside Wisconsin? Here is Every State’s Requirements for Admission by Motion

The Wisconsin Fair Dealership Law is a robust trade law that prohibits “grantors” from terminating, failing to renew, cancelling, or substantially changing “dealerships” without good cause, proper notice, and an opportunity to cure. With a few select exceptions, the WFDL applies generally, and a wide range of businesses have successfully claimed protection under the statute, including beauty product wholesalers, lawn and farm implement distributors, and even municipal golf professionals. To be considered a protected “dealership,” a business must demonstrate…
Continue Reading The Wisconsin Fair Dealership Law Enters Its 50th Year: What Is a Dealership?

Male Owner Of Start Up Coffee Shop Or Restaurant Turning Round Open Sign On Door
Male Owner Of Start Up Coffee Shop Or Restaurant Turning Round Open Sign On Door

On April 5, 1974, Governor Patrick Lucey signed the Wisconsin Fair Dealership Law into law, hailing it as the Magna Carta for small businesses. In his words, the WFDL was enacted to “protect the thousands of small businessmen in Wisconsin” who operate “filling stations, building materials and supply houses, lumber yards, sports equipment stores” and a variety of other businesses. The statutory text expressly identifies the promotion of fair business relations and protection from oppressive conduct among its principal…
Continue Reading The Wisconsin Fair Dealership Law Enters Its 50th Year: An Introduction

Internet and cyber security concept
Internet and cyber security concept. digital technology background. 3d illustration

The Wisconsin Court of Appeals allows negligence claims against businesses for cybersecurity attacks to move forward but holds that invasion of privacy claims require intentional conduct.

In the age of technology, more businesses are choosing to store their records in electronic databases for a variety of reasons, such as reducing paper files or to centrally locate information. It is likely that those electronically stored records contain personally identifiable information (PII) such as bank account records, social security numbers, driver’s…
Continue Reading Wisconsin Court of Appeals Allows Negligence Claims for Cybersecurity Attacks, Holds that Invasion of Privacy Claims Require Intentional Conduct

Incorporating resiliency into the built environment is something architects and engineers are increasingly focusing on in the face of the threats posed by climate change. Both the insurance industry and evolving standards of care may also soon require engineers and architects to incorporate resiliency into their designs, even if individual professionals do not feel climate change issues need to be addressed in their building design.
Although incorporating resiliency in the face of climate change is a relatively new concept…
Continue Reading Beyond Building Green: Resiliency Resources and Potential Requirements for Addressing Climate and Extreme Weather

To exercise the power of eminent domain, Wisconsin municipalities must comply with Chapter 32 of the Wisconsin Statutes. However, the power of eminent domain cannot be used to acquire property to create a “pedestrian way.” In a recently decided case, Sojenhomer LLC v. Village of Egg Harbor (2021AP1589 March 14, 2023) (publication recommended), the Wisconsin Court of Appeals held that the Village of Egg Harbor violated that law when it attempted to condemn private property to install a sidewalk…
Continue Reading Wisconsin Court of Appeals Rejects Village’s Attempt to Condemn Property for Sidewalk

Since the start of the pandemic in early 2020, the wait to time get an initial decision in Wisconsin on a Social Security disability application has gone from about three months to more than eight months.

And that’s not including the appeal process, which can take additional 12 to 24 months, from the time of submission (Request for Reconsideration after initial decision denial) to ultimately appearing before an administrative law judge (if the Reconsideration is denied), then having…
Continue Reading What’s the Hold Up? Delays with the Social Security Disability Decisions

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If I terminate an employee after a 90 day probationary period, do I still have to pay Unemployment Insurance?
Most likely, yes. But, not immediately. And, possibly not ever.
Contrary to popular belief, a probationary status has no bearing on whether an employer has to pay unemployment insurance. Whether an employer plans on having its employee work for a week, a month or long-term, the employer is required to pay unemployment insurance on that employee. The employer may be…
Continue Reading How do probationary periods affect Unemployment Insurance?

Interpreting for the first time the product liability statute adopted in 2011, the Wisconsin Supreme Court refuses to adopt Restatement (Third) of Torts Section 2(b) and holds that the consumer-contemplation test remains the standard for determining whether a product is “unreasonably dangerous” in a strict liability claim.

Last month, in Murphy v. Columbus McKinnon Corp., 2022 WI 109, — N.W.2d —, 2022 WL 17972321 (Dec. 28, 2022), the Supreme Court of Wisconsin interpreted the Wisconsin product liability statute for…
Continue Reading Wisconsin Supreme Court: Restatement’s Risk-Utility Test Does Not Replace the Consumer-Contemplation Test as the Standard for Determining “Unreasonably Dangerous” Products (Extended Post)

Interpreting for the first time the product liability statute adopted in 2011, the Wisconsin Supreme Court refuses to adopt Restatement (Third) of Torts Section 2(b) and holds that the consumer-contemplation test remains the standard for determining whether a product is “unreasonably dangerous” in a strict liability claim.
Last month, in Murphy v. Columbus McKinnon Corp., 2022 WI 109, — N.W.2d —, 2022 WL 17972321 (Dec. 28, 2022), the Supreme Court of Wisconsin interpreted the Wisconsin product liability statute for the…
Continue Reading Wisconsin Supreme Court: Restatement’s Risk-Utility Test Does Not Replace the Consumer-Contemplation Test as the Standard for Determining “Unreasonably Dangerous” Products

Wisconsin Supreme Court issues significant insurance coverage opinion, finding that insurers cannot use preclusion principles to sidestep duty to defend.
On January 26, 2022, the Wisconsin Supreme Court weighed in on one potential exception to the “complaint test” as a method of determining whether an insurance company has a duty to defend a lawsuit brought against its insured. Dostal v. Strand, 2023 WI 6, __ N.W.2d __.
Generally, when an insured party is sued, the insurer must compare the…
Continue Reading Wisconsin Supreme Court Issues Significant Opinion: Insurers Cannot Use Preclusion Principles to Sidestep Duty to Defend

Wisconsin farms, like others around the nation, increasingly rely on the strenuous labor of immigrants and temporary guestworkers. The economic, historical, and social factors that led to this dependence are complex. The U.S. has a history of encouraging employers to invite temporary workers from Mexico and other countries during periods of labor shortages. Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, Wisconsin employers participated in the
Emergency Labor Farm Program of 1943, known as the Bracero Agreement, offering short-term labor…
Continue Reading Ag Industry Leaders: Immigration Reform Is Necessary to Our Agriculture Economy

Many of the divorce and paternity cases I handle involve a pro-se adverse party who frequently has plenty of experience with the criminal court system.

After those experiences, the adverse party often requests that the court appoint them a lawyer – after all, they’ve had one appointed before in the same courts. After such a request comes a difficult explanation that Wisconsin does not appoint an attorney for civil cases,1 and then the dawning realization at some point…
Continue Reading Right to Counsel in Wisconsin Civil Suits – and a Call to Action