About
About Judge Gundrum.
Mark D. Gundrum is a judge on the Wisconsin Court of Appeals — District II, where he has served since 2011. District II covers Waukesha, Racine, Kenosha, and the southeastern counties of Wisconsin.
Before joining the Court of Appeals, Gundrum briefly served as a Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge in 2010–2011. Earlier, he spent eleven years in the Wisconsin State Legislature representing the 84th Assembly District, where he chaired the Assembly Judiciary Committee from 2001 to 2008 and served as Assistant Majority Leader and Majority Caucus Chair from 2005 to 2008. Gundrum has also served as a Judge Advocate General officer in the United States Army Reserve since 2000, including a 2008 deployment to Iraq as a Rule of Law Advisor. Earlier in his career, he practiced law in private practice and served as a law clerk for U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph Randa in the Eastern District of Wisconsin.
He was first elected to the Court of Appeals in 2011.
Featured Opinions
Notable opinions.
State v. Larson
Authored the majority. District II's prior opinions on Wisconsin's judicial substitution statute had drifted apart from each other. Rather than paper over the conflict, Gundrum wrote it openly and deferred to a controlling Wisconsin Supreme Court rule—the way an intermediate appeals court is supposed to handle its own messy precedent. The opinion also protected a defendant's procedural rights in the process.
Wisconsin lets a defendant ask for a different judge in some criminal cases. District II had ruled on the question more than once, but the older cases pointed in different directions. Gundrum did not pretend the conflict was not there. He laid it out and then followed the rule the Wisconsin Supreme Court had already set. That is the right answer when an appeals court has gone in two directions—say so plainly, then look up to the higher court for guidance.
Oconomowoc v. Cota (2024 WI App 8)
Authored the majority. An employment-discrimination case turning on what "any other offense" means in § 111.32(1). Gundrum read the phrase as it is written. The Wisconsin Supreme Court ultimately disagreed and reversed 5-2—but his reasoning was a defensible plain-meaning read, not a stretch toward a preferred result.
Wisconsin law says employers cannot fire someone just because of a past arrest. The question was what kinds of arrests count. The law says "any other offense." Gundrum read that phrase the way most people would—broadly, covering most past offenses. The Wisconsin Supreme Court eventually disagreed and read the phrase more narrowly, reversing 5-2. Reasonable judges can disagree on this one. Gundrum's reading stuck to the everyday meaning of the words. He didn't reach for an outcome; he just followed the language.
State v. Syrrakos; Garrett v. OceanView
Authored the majorities. Routine application of established frameworks—the kind of disciplined criminal-procedure and civil-litigation work that takes care of the bulk of any appellate court's docket. Steady, rule-bound, no reach beyond what the parties briefed.
Two ordinary cases, one criminal and one civil. The legal rules were already on the books. Gundrum's job was to apply them to the facts. He did. Neither opinion stretches the law or reaches questions the parties did not raise. That is what most appeals court work looks like, and it is what most cases need.
