Court Opinion

ID: 9580950
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:10:27.767117+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:36:37.079855
License: Public Domain

SHIRLEY S. ABRAHAMSON, J.
(concurring). I write to remind attorneys to take care in relying on *73language in opinions of the court of appeals when this court has affirmed, reversed, or modified the decision of the court of appeals and failed to comment on the court of appeals language. This court has never decided the effect of a court of appeals opinion when this court affirms, reverses, or modifies the decision of the court of appeals.
In this case the majority opinion of the court of appeals stated:
The Supreme Court has indicated that although settlement agreements under the aegis of Rule 807.05, Stats., 'have occasionally been referred to as contracts, they are not governed by contract law' and may be set aside, in the court's discretion, for any of the reasons specified in Rule 806.07(1), Stats. Burmeister v. Vondracheck, 86 Wis. 2d 650, 664, 273 N.W. 2d 242, 248 (1979). Apart from the ameliorating provisions of Rule 806.07, however, certain stipulations under Rule 807.05 'are entitled to all the sanctity of an ordinary contract.' Thayer v. Federal Life Ins. Co., 217 Wis. 282, 285, 258 N.W. 849, 850 (1935). Principles of contract law may thus illumine our inquiry. 147 Wis. 2d at 737.
Because this language in the court of appeals' opinion might survive the court's modification of the court of appeals' decision, the court's opinion attempts to clarify this language and the Burmeister case. The court opinion states that the Burmeister court "goes too far to say that contract law is inapplicable to all agreements reached under sec. 807.05, Stats.," majority op. p. 67, and is "incorrect to say that sec. 807.05 operates to make enforceable as a contract a putativé agreement that is not a contract, just because the formalities of that statute have been observed," majority op. p. 67.
*74Mrs. Kocinski's pro se brief refers to Burmeister. The briefs in this court of counsel for the other parties do not discuss the Burmeister case. While I have doubts about the need for this court's "clarification," I join in the opinion.