Court Opinion

ID: 9659366
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 21:42:49.738502+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:07.278047
License: Public Domain

FINE, J.
¶ 23 (dissenting). Wilde Pontiac Cadillac, Inc., and its employee Randall Thompson not only took advantage of an eighteen-year-old woman but they also delayed and obfuscated the litigation process.1 Indeed, from my review of the record, I believe that they pursued a scorched-earth Rambo-litigation policy that has no place in our justice system.
*678¶ 24. Kolupar submitted a fee and cost request for approximately $53,000, of which only $41,000 was for attorneys fees. Moreover, of the approximately $12,000 in costs, $3,600 was for the following expenses that, in all but extraordinary cases, the justice system should provide to litigants without cost: mediation expenses of $1,250, and $2,350 as payment to the discovery master. Significantly, neither the Majority nor the trial court disputes that Kolupar's lawyer both:
(1) spent the time (and incurred the expenses) working on the case as reflected by the fee request, and
(2) that the fee request represents a fair hourly rate for the lawyer's time.
Yet, the Majority defers to the unfocused musings by both a former judge, appointed to oversee a small part of the discovery disputes in this case, and the trial court.
¶ 25. Kolupar sought her attorneys fees under a fee-shifting statute. The purpose of fee-shifting statutes is to level the litigation playing field so that aggrieved citizens like Kolupar are not barred at the courthouse door by the daunting prospect that the legal costs will outweigh any recovery. See Hughes v. Chrysler Motors Corp., 197 Wis. 2d 973, 985, 542 N.W.2d 148, 152 (1996). If the Majority's decision is allowed to stand, persons like Kolupar will justifiably not only pause with trepidation at the courthouse entrance but, indeed, only the most stalwart will not turn and go away. Thus, despite what they have done, Wilde and Thompson and those like them will have won. I respectfully dissent.
*679A. Wilde and Thompson forced Kolupar's lawyer to spend the time on the case that he did.
¶ 26. As the Majority recounts, the former judge was appointed to be discovery master. He served for four months. When the tri'al court asked him to give an opinion on the fee request, the former judge replied that the case grew "barnacles." It did. It did because Wilde and Thompson threw obstacles in Kolupar's path that would make James Bond and his nails- and oil-disgorging Astin-Martin green with envy. Some examples:
Before Kolupar brought this action she offered to settle the case for $13,000, which was, essentially, her out-of-pocket costs at the time. Wilde did not make any counteroffer. Thus, Kolupar had to sue in order to get justice.
Once suit was brought, Wilde answered, alleging that Kolupar's complaint was frivolous within the meaning of Wis. Stat. § 814.025. In my view, the charge that Kolupar filed a frivolous complaint is, itself, frivolous.
Kolupar's action was brought in Milwaukee County, which was an appropriate venue. Wilde filed a motion to change venue to Waukesha County. That motion was denied.
The motion by Wilde to change venue argued that the "only . . . rationale" for filing the case in Milwaukee County was because jury verdicts, as argued in the motion, are more "generous" in Milwaukee County than Waukesha county. This is not a recognized ground to change venue, and *680the Majority does not contend that it is. Moreover, Kolupar had not even demanded a jury trial.
The trial court held a hearing on the motion by Wilde to change venue. Kolupar and Wilde filed briefs before and after the hearing.
In its answer, Wilde denied that Thompson was a Wilde manager as Kolupar had alleged in her complaint. Understandably, Kolupar then sought from Wilde via discovery Thompson's employment file with Wilde. Kolupar also sought Wilde's files concerning a car that Kolupar had purchased from Wilde several years earlier and had used as a trade-in for the car that is the subject of this lawsuit, as well as Wilde's file in connection with Kolupar's purchase of the second car. In the face of these perfectly reasonable discovery requests, Wilde and Thompson stonewalled. Kolupar requested the documents in mid-July of 2000. Kolupar was forced to file two motions to compel discovery, which were heard on September 25, 2000, and November 27, 2000. On October 13, 2002, the trial court granted the motion to compel, and the order required that all the documents be produced within thirty days. They were not. At the second hearing, on November 27, Wilde's attorney angrily exclaimed to the trial court that "this is ridiculous that we're here. I have produced every document." Yet, by letter dated December 7, 2000, Wilde's lawyer finally produced the missing documents.
An egregious, and sleazy, example of the Rambo tactics Wilde used is that Wilde's lawyer deposed one of Kolupar's friends about Kolupar's employment as a topless dancer and Kolupar's desire to have breast-augmentation implant surgery.
*681• Wilde filed a motion for summary judgment, to which Kolupar had to respond. The trial court denied the motion.
• The trial court ordered the parties to attend two mediation sessions. This, too, added to the time and expense. Wilde let the first mediation session go by without making any settlement offer. After the second mediation session, it made its first offer, for $6,600. Kolupar accepted this offer after she was able to persuade the bank that held the security interest in her first cár (the trade-in) to accept the $6,600 as payment in full of the bank's judgment for $10,000 plus accruing interest, which, apparently, by the time of the' settlement, approached approximately $20,000.
B. The trial court never considered the factors governing the setting of attorneys fees under a fee-shifting statute.
¶ 27. In ¶ 16, the Majority opinion sets out the factors governing a trial court's exercise of discretion in awarding attorneys fees. It is true, of course, that an award of attorneys fees is within the trial court's discretion, but that discretion "must, in fact, be exercised." Stathus v. Horst, 2003 WI App 28, ¶ 14, 260 Wis. 2d 166, 173-174, 659 N.W.2d 165, 168. This was not done here. The trial court here never considered on the record any of the factors. Rather, it deferred to the off-hand assessment of the former judge who, as the Majority notes, was only appointed to be a discovery master. The trial court's abdication of its responsibility was palpable, as reflected by the transcript in the record:
I am going to ask Mr. Crivello [the former judge] to make a recommendation to the Court in front of you folks as to how I should handle this because I think that *682is his — I can ask for that as the special master, and because of his rather detailed greater information than this Court has.
And on what did the discovery master rely in making his recommendation? Well, the Majority sets it all out in ¶ 7:
• His "thirty years in [the] practice of law, as well as fifteen years as a circuit judge." The , retired judge graduated from law school in 1973, http://www.wisbar.org/lawyersearch/ resdetails.asp?ID=1008232 (last accessed June 04, 2003), so the "fifteen years as a circuit judge" is included in the "thirty years."
• He "conducted three formal discovery hearings in this case," plus the ancillary correspondence and telephone calls. He did not preside over and was not involved in the change-of-venue hearing or the summary-judgment proceeding.
• The former judge admitted that his involvement in the case was limited and that he only was involved for some four months.
• Wilde suggested the $15,000 figure, and the former judge adopted it without any analysis beyond his view that more was not warranted because, with Kolupar's acceptance of the $6,600 offer of settlement, the case was "just barely above a small claims case."
¶ 28. In accepting the former judge's off-the-cuff "recommendation," the trial court refused to look at the extensive documentation submitted by Kolupar in support of her request for attorneys fees and related costs. The trial court relied on Milwaukee County Circuit *683Court Local Rule 365, and the Majority validates that reliance. The rule, however, governs "motions"; it does not apply to exhibits offered at trials or evidentiary hearings. Kolupar never filed a motion for attorneys fees; the statute permits them and she demanded them in her complaint. Indeed, the trial court sua sponte set the hearing on the attorney-fees matter: "We'll all meet back here on the date set for trial to the court on May 13th and we'll consider the attorneys' fee issue."
¶ 29. The Majority approves of the trial court's acceptance of the former judge's recommendation because, in its view, such acceptance is sanctioned by Wis. Stat. Rule 805.17. But Rule 805.17(2) provides that a referee's "findings . . . may be adopted in whole or part as the findings of the [trial] court." The former judge was appointed to be a discovery master only — he was not appointed to assess Kolupar's fee request; he held no hearings, examined no evidence, and made no "findings."
¶ 30. As we have seen, the former judge based his recommendation in part on his view that Kolupar's acceptance of the belated $6,600 settlement offer made the matter "just barely above a small claims case." But the amount of recovery is not a measure of what the fee-shifting award should be in these types of cases:
Often the ámount of pecuniary loss is small compared with the- cost of litigation. Thus, it was necessary to make the recovery large enough to give tenants an incentive to bring suit. The award of attorney fees encourages attorneys to pursue tenants' claims where the anticipated monetary recovery would not justify the expense of legal action.
Shands v. Castrovinci, 115 Wis. 2d 352, 358, 340 N.W.2d 506, 509 (1983).
*684¶ 31. The trial court also justified its minimal award of attorneys fees to Kolupar because "[t]he flip side is Wilde has to swallow whatever fees they have." Neither the trial court nor the Majority cites any authority for this startling proposition — that a rich defendant can frustrate at every turn a poor plaintiffs quest for justice and then say when the fee-shifting day of reckoning has arrived, "I have substantial attorneys fees myself, I shouldn't also have to pay the plaintiffs."
¶ 32. The trial court's adoption of the former judge's "just barely above a small claims case" rationale, as well as the trial court's consideration of the "flip side" of Wilde's own fees will, because the Majority has sanctioned it in a decision that is recommended for publication, gut the fee-shifting statutes. The statutes, as noted by Shands, were designed to keep open the courthouse doors to persons whose claims do not justify the retention of a lawyer unless, by prevailing, that person can recover his or her attorneys fees.
¶ 33. In my view, the trial court not only erroneously exercised its discretion in setting the attorneys fees and related costs at $15,000, it did not exercise any discretion. Neither the former judge nor the trial court pointed to anything that Kolupar's lawyer did that was not justified by the case — beyond their imbricating hunches. The law requires more.
¶ 34. No one disputes that Kolupar's lawyer did what he said he did and that his hourly rate was reasonable. In light of this, I would reverse the judgment and award to Kolupar the fees and costs she requested.
¶ 35. I respectfully dissent.

 During the evidentiary hearing held by the trial court on the attorneys-fee issue, when Kolupar's lawyer asked her why she filed the lawsuit, the trial court interrupted: "Let's get to the point, counsel. I know what the case is about. She got defrauded." Randall Thompson's lawyer interjected "[ajllegedly," and the trial court repeated that word, "[ajllegedly." Neither the trial court's tone nor its demeanor is, of course, a matter of record.