Court Opinion

ID: 9517483
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 00:18:20.541575+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:54:00.139022
License: Public Domain

*592SHIRLEY S. ABRAHAMSON, J.
(dissenting). I would affirm the decision of the court of appeals holding that the trial court abused its discretion in not granting a continuance.
The majority’s statement of the facts does not give a full picture of the events on the morning in question. The record shows that the trial court was very irritated that the defendant’s absence caused it to try a case that it had failed to settle and that it had arranged to be removed to another judge for trial. It is clear that the trial court simply assumed that even though the defendant had been present earlier in the morning for a settlement conference, his unexplained absence proved that he did not have a valid defense and that he was attempting to avoid a trial. There is nothing in the record to justify this assumption, as the majority fully reveals when it states that the trial court’s finding that the defense was frivolous was against the great weight and clear preponderance of the evidence.* Supra, p. 250. The majority holds that the defendant “pleaded a defense which had a reasonable basis in law and equity.” Supra, p. 250. If the defense was *593“pleaded,” the trial court was obviously on notice that the defendant had not left the courtroom because he had no defense.
For the same reasons that the majority concludes that the trial court’s finding of a frivolous defense was against the great weight and clear preponderance of the evidence, the majority should conclude, as I do, that the trial court abused its discretion in failing to grant a continuance in this case.
Even if the trial court’s assumption was correct that the defense was frivolous, the trial court abused its discretion in failing to grant defense counsel the courtesy of giving him time to find his client during a lunch recess. Operating under its unfounded assumption that the defense was frivolous, the trial court held defense counsel’s feet to the fire and relentlessly pushed the trial forward. The trial began at about 11 a.m. and defense counsel requested a continuance until 2 p.m. The trial court denied the request. The trial proceeded. The plaintiff completed its case at 12:30 p.m., the court not having called a noon recess, and defense counsel requested a recess until 2 p.m. to produce his client to testify. The trial court denied the request, continuing through the court’s normal lunch hour, stating:
“Mr. Barrock, your witness, Mr. Pohlhammer, the defendant in this case, voluntarily absented himself from the courthouse, we had two judges ready, willing and able to handle this matter, you have wasted an hour and a half here and I am not going to adjourn the matter now, if the man doesn’t want to appear, that’s his business.”
The trial court then announced its decision.
I dissent because the majority’s correct conclusion that the defense was meritorious contradicts its conclusion that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to grant a continuance. I also dissent because I believe it was an abuse of discretion in this case to refuse to grant a continuance over the normal lunch hour.

860. (Rule) 805.17(2), Stats. 1981-82, provides that findings of fact made by a trial court sitting without a jury “shall not be set aside unless clearly erroneous.” Although the court frequently uses the phrase “great weight and clear preponderance” instead of “clearly erroneous,” our cases explaining the great weight and clear preponderance test in cases tried to a judge show that the two tests are in this state really the same. See Korb v. Schroedel, 93 Wis. 2d 207, 213, 286 N.W.2d 803 (1980); Estate of Larsen, 7 Wis. 2d 263, 274, 96 N.W.2d 489 (1959); State ex rel. Isham v. Mullaly, 15 Wis. 2d 249, 255, 112 N.W.2d 701 (1961). Por a discussion of the historical roots of the “clearly erroneous” test and its application in the federal courts, see 5A Moore’s Federal Practice par. 52.02, pp. 264 ff. (1982); 9 Wright and Miller, Federal Practice, sec. 2571, pp. 681 ff. (1971). See also Wilkinson v. Wilkinson, 59 Wis. 554, 560, 18 N.W.2d 513 (1884), and Paterson v. Paterson, 73 Wis. 2d 150, 154, 242 N.W.2d 907 (1976), for the development of the “great weight and clear preponderance” test in equity jurisdiction.