IRG Court Watch · July 2026

Term in Review 2026: A Half-Crazy Court

The Wisconsin Supreme Court’s 2025–26 term, decision by decision.

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Wisconsin’s progressive Supreme Court majority spent the 2025–26 term picking its fights. In most cases — consumer suits, criminal appeals, insurance disputes — it followed the statutes as written and ruled against the plaintiffs’ bar and criminal defendants. But in the cases that touched politics, the majority showed it is ready to exercise its power, and the biggest fights of all — Act 10, education finance, redistricting, and the future of statutory interpretation under Kalal — are still in the pipeline.

This Term in Review opens with a foreword by Daniel R. Suhr identifying the term’s themes, then recaps each major decision in plain language, grouped into six areas of law: judicial method and the rule of law; education and equal protection; property, sovereignty and the tax base; elections and transparency; business, tort and civil liability; and government operations. It closes with a tribute to Justice Rebecca Bradley’s judicial legacy, the cases to watch on the 2026–27 docket, and a complete index of all nineteen merits opinions of the term.

The eleven decisions that defined the term

Koble Investments v. Marquardt, 2026 WI 19 (7–0) — A month-to-month residential lease is not an “agreement to defer payment” under the Wisconsin Consumer Act, and a tenant who proved no loss is owed no attorney’s fees.
State v. N.K.B., 2026 WI 22 (6–1) — No dangerousness-based involuntary medication for a defendant committed only under § 971.14. The majority reached past the statutory text into legislative history; Justice Rebecca Bradley’s concurrence laid out the stakes of abandoning textualism.
Rabiebna v. HEAB, 2026 WI 20 (unanimous judgment; 4–3 on the reasoning) — A state grant program limited by race and ancestry fails strict scrutiny under Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard — a win for color-blind equal protection, but narrower than the headline suggests.
Legend Lake POA v. Keshena, 2026 WI 21 (4–3) — Tribal sovereign immunity bars enforcing private covenants on land placed in trust, and a divided Court held for the first time anywhere that the immovable-property exception categorically does not reach tribes.
Wisconsin Voter Alliance v. Secord, 2026 WI 27 (5–2) — Completed voter-incompetency forms held by a register in probate are closed court records beyond the reach of the public-records law.
Estate of Lorbiecki v. Pabst, 2026 WI 12 (5–2) — Owner safe-place liability extends to a contractor’s employees, but Wisconsin’s punitive-damages cap is tied to what is recoverable against the defendant rather than the full verdict.
Wren v. Columbia St. Mary’s, 2026 WI 11 (7–0) — The COVID-19 health-care immunity statute does not violate the jury-trial right: where the legislature abrogated the claim, no case at law ever arose.
Cincinnati Insurance Co. v. Ropicky, 2026 WI 25 (4–3) — Rainwater intrusion through a construction defect is a covered ensuing loss; the Fungi endorsement caps that coverage at $10,000; and the bad-faith claim is reinstated.
Racine County v. R.P.L., 2026 WI 26 (4–3) — A Chapter 55 protective-placement appeal is not moot, because § 46.10 cost-of-care liability is a live collateral consequence.
Brekke v. Midwest Medical Ins. Co., 2026 WI 29 (7–0; 4–3 on scope) — All seven justices agree a treated unborn child later born alive is a “patient” with her own right to informed consent; three justices wrote separately to say the majority answered far more than was asked.
Wisconsin State Legislature v. Kaul, 2026 WI 28 (5–2; second issue dismissed) — Ordinary textualism on § 165.10 — then the Court added a second question on its own motion, briefed it, argued it, and dismissed it as improvidently granted.

Already on the horizon

Act 10 collective-bargaining litigation in Dane County Circuit Court; two redistricting suits set for argument in September; WEAC’s Eau Claire challenge to the statewide school finance formula; the recusal-rule study committee; the future of Kalal v. Dane County Circuit Court in Abby Windows LLC v. LIRC; and a conservative seat on the April ballot following Justice Rebecca Bradley’s departure.

By Jake Curtis, Daniel R. Suhr, and Kevin M. Zielinski. Published July 23, 2026 by IRG Court Watch, an initiative of the Institute for Reforming Government.