Litigation Blog | Litigation Section

This blog discusses issues important to attorneys engaged in civil litigation, insurance law, and tort law. Topics include changes in the statutes, important appellate and Supreme Court decisions, insurance law, practice tips and pointers, procedural issues, evidentiary issues, jury trials, and more. Published by the State Bar of Wisconsin's Litigation Section.

The section strives to further the development and improvement of the civil litigation practice by monitoring, commenting upon, and proposing legislation, and by sponsoring and presenting CLE programs. The section has an email list, and supports law students’ trial advocacy training and the protection of the adversarial and jury systems.

Members of the State Bar of Wisconsin may join the section by visiting https://www.wisbar.org/formembers/groups/pages/join-a-group.aspx (login required).

Website: https://www.wisbar.org/forMembers/Groups/Sections/LitigationSection/pages/home.aspx

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By: Litigation Section | State Bar of Wisconsin​

Blog Authors

Barbara A. O'Brien
Sarah A. Zylstra
Matthew C. Lein
Jacqueline Chada Nuckels
Jonathan D. Cook
Paul D. Curtis
Christina Davis Sommers
Edward E. Robinson
Andrew Gunem
Erik H. Monson
Thomas J. Donnelly
Andrew J. Lawton
Ralph J. Tease
Monte E. Weiss, Kristen S. Scheuerman
Eric L. Andrews
Heather L. Nelson
Amy M. Risseeuw
Ryan R. Simatic
James R. Troupis
David S. Blinka
Kristen S. Scheuerman
Nelson W. Phillips

Latest from Litigation Blog | Litigation Section

“What hath God wrought?”

These words were delivered when Samuel Morse opened the first telegraph line in Washington, D.C., on May 24, 1844. Morse was keenly aware that this innovation in communication would transform the structure of American society.

Are we on the brink of a similar transformation with the advent of generative artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots?

When Open AI released “ChatGPT” to the public last November, it sent reverberations through the tech industry, inducing giants like Microsoft, Google,…
Continue Reading Can a Chatbot Assist with Legal Practice? Embrace the Potential of Generative Artificial Intelligence with Caution

Life can turn on a dime. An injury sustained due to the nature of your occupation can set life-changing ripples in motion and cause you to take steps back physically, mentally, and financially.

While we all know that it is possible to attain an injury due to our occupation, we also never take a job expecting that to be the result. Knowing that your employer carries workers’ compensation insurance can give injured workers some peace of mind.

However, it…
Continue Reading The Importance of Date of Injury in Occupational Injury Workers’ Compensation Cases

We believe a lot of people think of Medicare like the funny uncle who shows up for the holidays and all you want to do is avoid him. But avoiding the funny uncle … aka Medicare … won’t keep him away from the plate of latkes or the Christmas fruitcake, and he’ll just try harder to get your attention if you don’t deal with him up front. So if you say your polite hellos and talk about the weather…
Continue Reading New Year’s Resolution: Stay Out of Medicare’s Crosshairs

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Decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) are a novel type of entity – with profound differences from traditional structures like LLCs. Lately, DAOs are experiencing a surge of interest. According to one estimate, the market capitalization of DAOs was already around $21 billion in January 2022. What Are DAOs? Thankfully, despite their novelty, DAOs are not completely unrecognizable. For example, the New York Times once described a DAO as a “group chat with a bank account.” DAOs share some…
Continue Reading The Pitfalls and Possibilities of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations

Clients often ask their attorneys whether they can be held liable for serving alcohol to their adult friends, employees, or customers who subsequently injure others. According to Wisconsin law, the answer is generally “no.” Providers of alcohol in Wisconsin have long been shielded from civil liability arising out of accidents caused by intoxicated adults. Historically, Wisconsin law has favored holding intoxicated adults liable for damages caused by their negligence while favoring immunity for the liquor provider. The Immunity Statute:…
Continue Reading Holiday Party Primer: Alcohol Providers Are Generally Exempt From Liability

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The State Bar of Wisconsin Litigation Section is one of few professional organizations that brings together adversaries.

Hopefully, we don’t normally think of ourselves as adversaries, but this section involves attorneys who consistently advocate for opposing parties with a balance of defense and plaintiff members on the board. While we may be on opposite sides, we understand that many of our struggles are the same and we usually work collaboratively to find solutions.

For those challenges that are…
Continue Reading Asking for a Friend: How to Avoid Aggravating Opposing Counsel

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“Jury trials are going the way of the dinosaur.” “Mandatory mediation has taken trials away from us.” I have heard some version of these quotes for the better part of the last two decades while practicing across two different states. The words are usually uttered by gray-haireds boasting how they built skills and reputations as top trial attorneys based on trying “hundreds of cases” throughout their careers, yet bemoaning that young lawyers today have no chance to become as…
Continue Reading Finding and Developing Our Future Trial Attorneys

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Every first-year law student learns about the concept of adverse possession. On the outskirts of these lessons are rules regarding easements. In Wisconsin, these two concepts combine when it comes to utility companies and the placement of their equipment to deliver energy and telecommunications. About Easements An easement is the grant of a nonpossessory property interest that grants an easement holder permission for the use of another person’s property for a limited and specific purpose.1 Easements, therefore,…
Continue Reading Prescriptive Easements: Overhead to Underground

Two fairly recent decisions highlight the Wisconsin public records law’s presumption of openness, with limited exceptions, and the mandamus process by which challenges to that policy of openness occur. In the case of
Friends of Frame Park v. City of Waukesha,1 the requested records were disclosed shortly after the petition for mandamus was filed, and the court explained that, even after the records were released, the requester is entitled to relief as the prevailing party if the authority’s…
Continue Reading Two Recent Appeals Court Decisions Highlight Open Records Laws

The members of the State Bar of Wisconsin Litigation Section recognize that we serve a diverse community as Wisconsin lawyers. We believe our section, and the legal community at large, is strongest when it reflects (and looks more like) the communities we serve and the people we represent.The Litigation Section welcomes members of every gender, race, culture, age, sexual orientation, marital status, religion, geographic domicile, and physical ability.Jacqueline C. Nuckels, Marquette 2004, is an attorney with Jacobs Injury Law, …
Continue Reading State Bar Litigation Section Offers Sponsored Memberships to Diverse Attorneys

One case short of a top 10 list, this is a summary of nine recent decisions from the Wisconsin Court of Appeals that discuss insurance coverage.

Readers should note that several of the decisions discussed are unpublished, per curiam decisions, so an understanding of Rule 809.23(3)(a)-(b) is important.

Despite a prohibition on publication, the per curiam decisions discussed in this article are important in that they help the reader understand how courts have analyzed various coverage issues, and ​that…
Continue Reading Nine Recent Insurance Coverage Appeals Court Decisions

Under Wisconsin’s workers’ compensation regime, if a workplace injury is caused by an employer’s violation of safety rules and regulations – including those of U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) – the injured worker is entitled to additional workers’ compensation benefits.

The extra benefits are equal to an additional 15% of the allowable benefits with a maximum additional benefit of $15,000, according to Wis. Stat. section 102.57.
Workers’ Compensation in Wisconsin
As in most…
Continue Reading Wisconsin Workers’ Compensation: Impact of OSHA Safety Violations and Penalties

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Zoom depositions have presented interesting challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. When the court reporter is not physically present in the room with the deponent and/or the deponent is masked and socially distanced, the accuracy of the transcript can suffer. Combine this with scientific or technical testimony, along with screen “freeze” and other technical glitches, and – voilà – you have the perfect recipe for a transcript laden with errors.How does an attorney address the circumstance of “I didn’t say…
Continue Reading Transcript Errata in the Time of COVID-19

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For real estate to have value, you have to be able to get
to it. The right of ingress and egress to the public roadways from a property is called “access,” or an “easement of access.” Access is an inherent property right. Any property abutting a public roadway has an easement of access to the road, even without an express deed or grant.Yet, a property’s access rights are not unlimited. The State (and municipalities) have a legitimate governmental…
Continue Reading The State Removed Access to Your Clients’ Property. Now What?

Third-party negligence claims are legally complex, because both the employee and the employer have claims against any money damages that are recovered via an insurance settlement or a trial verdict awarded against a third party.

Any recovery from a third-party negligence claim must be split between the employee and the employer based on the formula set forth in the Wisconsin third-party liability statute.1 This article provides some background on third-party negligence claims and discusses how third-party awards are…
Continue Reading Splitting Awards in Third-party Negligence Claims

The use of boilerplate objections in response to written discovery – interrogatories, requests for documents, and requests for admissions – has proliferated in civil litigation, even though it has no basis under the rules.

All attorneys are familiar with the routine “form” boilerplate objections: relevance, overbroad, oppressive, burdensome, harassing, vague, ambiguous, attorney client-privilege, and attorney-work product, etc. The problem with using boilerplate objections has been heightened by the practice of prefacing discovery responses with a “general objections” section, which…
Continue Reading The Scourge of Boilerplate Objections