Opinion ID: 1581536
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Statutory Lis Pendens

Text: ¶ 22. The common law method of deeming a pending suit to be constructive notice of lis pendens proved unsatisfactory due to the potentially harsh impact on purchasers who did not have actual notice of pending real estate transactions. As a result, Wisconsin and most other jurisdictions enacted lis pendens statutes. Belleville State Bank, 117 Wis. 2d at 572. Lis pendens statutes were intended to ameliorate the harsh effect of the common law rule on third parties, by limiting the legal fiction of `constructive knowledge' of pending claims to those instances where a notice of lis pendens was recorded. TSA Int'l Ltd. v. Shimizu Corp., 990 P.2d 713, 736 (Haw. 1999) (brackets, internal quotation marks, and citation omitted). We outlined the history of Wisconsin's lis pendens statute in Belleville State Bank: The first Wisconsin lis pendens statute authorized a party to an action affecting real property to file a lis pendens with the clerk of the circuit court of each county in which the real property was situated. Ch. 120, sec. 37, Laws of 1856. In 1858, the place of filing was changed to the register of deeds of each county in which the property was situated. Ch. 124, sec. 7, 1858 Rev. Stats. The 1858 lis pendens statute remained substantially unchanged until 1955 when the filing of a lis pendens was made mandatory where the complaint or counterclaim contains a legal description of the real property and seeks relief in respect to the title thereto. The 1955 law also prohibited the entry of judgment in favor of the party required to file lis pendens until 20 days after the lis pendens has been filed. Ch. 553, sec. 8, Laws of 1955; sec. 281.03(1), Stats. 1955. Id. at 573-74 (footnotes omitted).