COURT OF APPEALS

DECISION

DATED AND FILED

May 24, 2023

Sheila T. Reiff

Clerk of Court of Appeals

NOTICE

This opinion is subject to further editing. If 

published, the official version will appear in 

the bound volume of the Official Reports. 

A party may file with the Supreme Court a 

petition to review an adverse decision by the 

Court of Appeals. See WIS. STAT. § 808.10 

and RULE 809.62. 

Appeal No. 2022AP1731 Cir. Ct. No. 2021FA592

STATE OF WISCONSIN IN COURT OF APPEALS

DISTRICT II

IN RE THE FINDING OF CONTEMPT IN: 

IN RE THE MARRIAGE OF:

NICOLE HUIRAS,

 PETITIONER-RESPONDENT,

 V.

NATHAN HUIRAS,

 RESPONDENT-APPELLANT.

APPEAL from an order of the circuit court for Racine County: 

KRISTIN M. CAFFERTY, Judge. Affirmed. 
No. 2022AP1731

2

¶1 GUNDRUM, P.J.1 Nathan Huiras appeals from an order of the 

circuit court finding him in contempt for harassment of Nicole Huiras2in violation 

of court orders dated October 19, 2021, and July 1, 2022. Nathan asserts the court 

erroneously exercised its discretion with this finding. For the following reasons, 

we disagree and affirm.

Background

¶2 As relevant, in this divorce case, the circuit court entered two orders 

prohibiting Nathan from harassing Nicole. The October 19, 2021 order ordered 

Nathan to contact Nicole only through Our Family Wizard and “not to harass 

[Nicole].” On May 27, 2022, Nicole filed a motion for contempt, asserting that 

Nathan violated the court’s order by contacting her utilizing methods other than 

Our Family Wizard and by harassing her. The court granted the motion on July 1, 

2022.

3 The court ordered that Nathan “shall have no contact with [Nicole] outside 

of Our Family Wizard. [Nathan] shall pay [Nicole]’s attorney’s fees with regard 

to this motion for contempt. Future violation of this order shall subject [Nathan]

to 30 days in the Racine County Jail for every event and a fine of $500 for each 

event.” The court stayed the sanctions.

¶3 On September 21, 2022, Nicole sought an order lifting that stay. She 

asserted, as relevant here, that Nathan submitted a harassing Our Family Wizard 

 

1

 This appeal is decided by one judge pursuant to WIS. STAT. § 752.31(2)(h) (2021-22). 

All references to the Wisconsin Statutes are to the 2021-22 version unless otherwise noted.

2

 Despite the informality, for simplicity’s sake, we will hereafter refer to Nathan Huiras 

as “Nathan” and Nicole Huiras as “Nicole.”

3

 We can locate no transcript in the record for this hearing. The order memorializing the 

circuit court’s oral ruling was signed by the court on September 21, 2022.
No. 2022AP1731

3

message to her on August 29, 2022. The court agreed the message constituted

harassment, lifted the stay and found Nathan in contempt, ordering him arrested 

and committing him to the county jail for thirty days. Nathan paid the $1,500 

purge condition, also ordered by the court, and was released from custody. Nathan 

appeals.

Discussion

¶4 We review de novo whether the circuit court followed proper 

procedures in exercising its contempt power. Evans v. Luebke, 2003 WI App 

207, ¶16, 267 Wis. 2d 596, 671 N.W.2d 304. “A circuit court’s contempt decision 

is discretionary and will be affirmed if the court reached a reasonable decision 

after applying the proper legal standards to the relevant facts.” Society Ins. v. 

Bodart, 2012 WI App 75, ¶7, 343 Wis. 2d 418, 819 N.W.2d 298. Whether a 

contempt of court occurred is a question of fact, which we uphold unless it is 

clearly erroneous. Oliveto v. Circuit Ct. for Crawford Cnty., 194 Wis. 2d 418, 

427, 533 N.W.2d 819, 823 (1995).

¶5 The circuit court lifted its earlier stay of contempt sanctions due to

the August 29, 2022 Our Family Wizard message Nathan sent Nicole. In that 

message, Nathan indicates Nicole is “delusional,” suggests she should be 

evaluated for a “personality disorder,” which is causing her to be a “sociopathic 

and abusive” mother, blames her for causing an “attachment injury” which will 

result in “behavioral issues” in their children, accuses her of playing “abusive and 

damaging” games with the children’s lives, and states that she is “living a lie.” 

The court found that the Our Family Wizard message constituted harassment as 

defined in WIS. STAT. § 813.125(1)(am)4.b., i.e., “[e]ngaging in a course of 
No. 2022AP1731

4

conduct or repeatedly committing acts which harass or intimidate another person 

and which serve no legitimate purpose.” 

¶6 Nathan cites numerous cases, but he fails to develop any argument 

as to how the cases would lead us to the conclusion that the circuit court erred in 

either finding him in contempt under WIS. STAT. § 785.03(1)(a) or in finding he 

committed harassment by the August 29, 2022 Our Family Wizard message to 

Nicole. His appeal fails for this reason alone, as we do not consider insufficiently 

developed arguments. See Industrial Risk Insurers v. American. Eng’g Testing, 

Inc., 2009 WI App 62, ¶25, 318 Wis. 2d 148, 769 N.W.2d 82 (“[W]e will not 

abandon our neutrality to develop arguments [for a party]”.). While we recognize 

that Nathan is pro se, he is still required to abide by the same rules governing 

attorneys. See Waushara County v. Graf, 166 Wis. 2d 442, 452, 480 N.W.2d 16 

(1992). Furthermore, Nathan’s precise position on appeal is difficult to decipher. 

It appears, however, that he is asserting that the court could only hold him in 

contempt pursuant to § 785.03(1)(b), involving punitive sanctions. A review of 

the record shows that the court here held him in contempt pursuant to

§ 785.03(1)(a), involving remedial sanctions, and Nathan fails to develop a 

sufficient argument to convince us the court erred in doing so.

4

 

4

 WISCONSIN STAT. § 785.03(1)(b) involves the district attorney, attorney general or a 

special prosecutor “issuing a complaint”—something that was not done in the case now before us. 

The court’s order here tracks the language of § 785.03(1)(a), as the contempt here, consistent with 

the language of this paragraph, was initiated by Nicole as “a person aggrieved by [Nathan’s] 

contempt of court,” who “s[ought] imposition of a remedial sanction for the contempt by filing a 

motion for that purpose in the proceeding to which the contempt is related.”

(continued)
No. 2022AP1731

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¶7 In July 2022, the circuit court found that Nathan had failed to 

comply with the October 2021 order not to harass Nicole, but it stayed the 

sanctions.5 Then, with Nathan’s August 29, 2022 posting on Our Family Wizard, 

the court agreed by its September 21 order to lift that stay to “ensure compliance 

with a prior order of the court”—i.e., to ensure Nathan stopped harassing Nicole.

See WIS. STAT. § 785.04(1)(d). As the court made clear, after going through the 

history of the case and explaining in detail Nathan’s conduct towards Nicole, it 

was Nathan’s “behavior that has put you here,” and he needed “consequences for 

your behavior” because it needed to stop and “the only thing that I can do is put 

you in custody.” The court added:

 It is my belief that without further court intervention, 

[Nathan] is pushing to see how far he can go and I am 

pushing back. So I am lifting the stay of contempt. I am 

finding that this Our Family Wizard post that [Nathan] 

made on August 29, 2022, Exhibit B to the affidavit to lift 

the stay, is a violation of the court’s order. I am going to 

order that [Nathan] have consequences for that.”

¶8 Nathan’s undeveloped contentions include his assertion that

“harassment” requires “bodily harm” or a “true threat.” “Harass,” however, means 

“to worry and impede by repeated attacks, to vex, trouble or annoy continually or 

 

The transcript from the September 21, 2022 hearing and the related signed order indicate 

the circuit court found Nathan in contempt because he “intentionally and without legal 

justification failed to comply with a court order,” specifically by harassing Nicole “in violation of 

court orders dated 10/19/2021 and 7/1/2022,” in which Nathan was directed not to harass Nicole. 

The court’s September 21 order states that it is a “[r]emedial [s]anction[],” and the court ordered 

that for Nathan to purge the contempt and avoid the ordered thirty days in jail, he would have to 

pay $1,500 to “Attorney Jessica Grundburg Client Trust Account[].” The court explained at the 

related September 21 hearing that the payment would “go toward” Nicole’s attorney’s fees.

5

 In addition to the circuit court’s October 2021 order prohibiting Nathan from harassing 

Nicole, WIS. STAT. § 767.117(1) also prohibits each party “in an action affecting the family,” as 

here, “from ... (a) [h]arassing ... the other party.” 
No. 2022AP1731

6

chronically, to plague, bedevil or badger.” Bachowski v. Salamone, 139 Wis. 2d 

397, 407, 407 N.W.2d 533 (1987) (citing Harass, WEBSTER’S THIRD NEW 

INTERNATIONAL DICTIONARY (1961)). Alternatively, harass means “to create an 

unpleasant or hostile situation for especially by uninvited and unwelcome verbal 

or physical conduct.” Harass, MERRIAM-WEBSTER DICTIONARY, 

https://www.merriam-webster.com/harass (last visited Apr. 14, 2023). We see no 

requirement of “bodily harm” or a “true threat.” Considering the latter dictionary 

definition, Nicole writes that Nathan’s August 29, 2022 message “create[s] an 

unpleasant or hostile situation for” her, and the circuit court agreed in light of prior 

harassing conduct by Nathan in this divorce case. Again, Nathan fails to 

sufficiently develop an argument that the circuit court erred in so concluding. 

¶9 As the appellant, Nathan bears the burden on appeal to demonstrate 

how the circuit court erred. See Gaethke v. Pozder, 2017 WI App 38, ¶36, 376 

Wis. 2d 448, 899 N.W.2d 381. He has not met this burden.6 

By the Court.—Order affirmed.

This opinion will not be published. See WIS. STAT.

RULE 809.23(1)(b)4.

 

6

 In his appellate briefing, Nathan briefly requests many things of this court and makes 

many contentions without developing any related arguments. Thus, to the extent we have not 

addressed any particular “issue” he “raises” in his briefing, it is deemed denied. See State v. 

Waste Mgmt. of Wis., Inc., 81 Wis. 2d 555, 564, 261 N.W.2d 147 (1978).