September 8
The term opens
Buddy’s Plant Plus Corp. v. Viking Masek Global Packaging Technologies, LLC
Read the Paragraph, Not the Caption
Must a clause limiting a seller's damages be conspicuous to be enforced? Wisconsin has never answered, and the cap sits in the middle of a paragraph captioned “Warranty.”
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State v. Noah Q. Mann-Tate
Legislative Grace or Constitutional Floor
The court of appeals held Wisconsin's reverse waiver statute facially unconstitutional for what the Legislature left out. The Supreme Court weighs whether that omission is a defect or a policy choice.
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September 15
Agencies and the text
Sierra Club v. Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
When a Number Becomes a Rule
Is a DNR memorandum listing baseline air pollution values an unpromulgated rule? The Court weighs whether a binding method for finding facts can carry the force of law.
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S.G. v. Wisconsin Department of Children and Families
A Seat at the Table
Who represents the public when a child files her own CHIPS petition? One sentence of Wis. Stat. § 48.09(5) decides whether county corporation counsel is a party.
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September 16
The congressional map, twice
Bothfeld v. Wisconsin Elections Commission
Undoing Its Own Map
Challengers ask the Wisconsin Supreme Court to discard the congressional map it adopted in 2022, and to recognize a partisan gerrymandering claim under Article I.
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Wisconsin Business Leaders for Democracy v. Wisconsin Elections Commission
A New Name for an Old Claim?
A second challenge to Wisconsin's congressional map, built on an “anti-competitive gerrymandering” theory no Wisconsin court has recognized.
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September 23
Contracts and conditions
D.M.B., LLC v. Germantown Mutual Insurance Co.
One Fire, Two Causes
Can an ordinance exclusion split a building in half? An insurer paid for the fire-damaged portion and refused the rest after the city ordered the building razed.
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State v. Jonathan James Petersen
Ordered Offline
What standard governs a supervision condition that silences speech? The Court weighs a blanket social media ban — and no Wisconsin statute defines “social media.”
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About these primers. Each primer is prepared from the argument as heard and from the opinions and statutes it discusses. Quotations are drawn from the Court’s recording or from an automated transcript and lightly conformed for readability; the provenance is noted on each page. Primers describe what was argued. They do not predict outcomes.