Russell Bulgrin was injured in a fire and explosion at the jointly owned Columbia Energy Center while employed by WP&L, which provided him worker’s compensation benefits. He and his wife sued MG&E and WPSC for negligence and safe-place violations, but those defendants obtained summary judgment by arguing that the worker’s compensation exclusivity provision barred the tort action because Bulgrin was also their employee. The court of appeals reversed, holding that MG&E and WPSC failed to make a prima facie showing under Wis. Stat. § 102.07(1) that they exercised the requisite control over the details of Bulgrin’s work; the operating agreements instead showed that WP&L alone directed day-to-day operations as if the plant were its own station. Because the moving parties did not satisfy their initial summary-judgment burden, the court did not reach the Bulgrins’ opposing affidavits and remanded for trial.
This case involved a paternity action brought by Pamela Dombrowski against Mark Moser after she applied for public assistance, where Moser sought to inspect the county social services department's confidential file on her for potentially exculpatory evidence to challenge her credibility. The trial court denied access under Wisconsin statute sec. 49.53(1) protecting AFDC records, leading to a jury verdict against Moser, but the court of appeals reversed, and the Wisconsin Supreme Court affirmed that decision. The court held that federal and state laws on AFDC confidentiality include exceptions for purposes connected to aid administration or related proceedings, and due process requires limited disclosure of relevant evidence to a paternity defendant. It outlined a procedure for in camera review by the trial court to release only necessary information under strict protective orders, with the case remanded for such a hearing and possible new trial.
The case involved a worker injured at a construction site who sued the crane company owner and insurer, initially under respondeat superior and safe-place statute claims, which resulted in summary judgment for the defendants. After that judgment was affirmed, the plaintiffs filed a second action alleging independent negligence by the defendant in failing to inform about OSHA regulations. The Wisconsin Supreme Court affirmed the court of appeals' decision that the second action was barred by res judicata because it arose from the same transaction and the claims could have been litigated in the first proceeding, adopting the transactional view from the Restatement (Second) of Judgments. Therefore, summary judgment was granted to the defendants without needing to address issues of material fact.
Rose Zinn, owner of land surrounding McConville Lake, sued the State of Wisconsin after the Department of Natural Resources issued a ruling that temporarily expanded the lake's ordinary high water mark onto approximately 200 acres of her property, designating it as public trust land under state statute. This action, later rescinded after rehearing, allegedly deprived Zinn of all reasonable use of the land for over a year and a half. Zinn claimed an unconstitutional temporary taking without just compensation under the Wisconsin Constitution and sought damages for inverse condemnation. The trial court denied the state's motion to dismiss, but the court of appeals reversed, holding that a temporary deprivation without physical invasion or legal restriction does not constitute a taking. The Wisconsin Supreme Court reversed the court of appeals, concluding that the complaint sufficiently stated a claim for relief because a temporary loss of title or use due to the state's action can qualify as a compensable taking, and sovereign immunity does not bar such constitutional claims.
The case involved a private nuisance claim by Harold Krueger, who operated a lawn and garden business near the Capitol Drive Airport, against the airport's owners, Dean and Lois Mitchell. Krueger alleged that the Mitchells' construction of a new paved runway in 1978 directed aircraft directly over his property, causing excessive noise that interfered with his business operations, and he sought damages for annoyance, inconvenience, and discomfort. A jury found the airport's operation constituted a nuisance and awarded damages, which the trial court reduced and the court of appeals affirmed. The Wisconsin Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the Federal Aviation Act did not preempt state-law private nuisance actions against airport proprietors and that damages for personal discomfort from noise were recoverable without proof of monetary loss or physical injury. The court reasoned that Congress had not clearly intended to occupy the field of aviation noise regulation to the exclusion of such common-law claims.
The case was a paternity action in which the state alleged that Daniel Mjelde fathered Rhonda Byal's child born prematurely in September 1978, based on evidence of sexual intercourse between them from late 1977 through January 1978 and Byal's testimony that she had relations with no one else. The trial court found Mjelde to be the father by clear and satisfactory evidence, but the court of appeals reversed on the ground that the state had not adequately established the conceptive period. The supreme court modified and affirmed the reversal, ruling that the statutory presumption of the conceptive period did not apply because the child weighed under five and a half pounds at birth, and the state therefore bore the burden of introducing competent evidence of the conception window, which it had not done. The court remanded for a new trial at which the state could amend its complaint and present such evidence.