Court Opinion

ID: 9850909
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:04:05.634253+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:45.357915
License: Public Domain

FINE, J.
(dissenting). For the reasons I explained in my dissent in Macherey v. Home Ins. Co., 184 Wis. 2d 1, 17-19, 516 N.W.2d 434, 440-441 (Ct. App. 1994), the majority has applied the wrong standard of review.1 I cannot conclude that the trial court was "clearly wrong" when it changed the jury's answers. Indeed, as the trial court indicated, those answers rested on speculation, not evidence. Accordingly, they cannot stand. See Merco Distrib. Corp. v. Commercial Police Alarm Co., 84 Wis. 2d 455, 460, 267 N.W.2d 652, 655 (1978) (verdict may not rest on speculation). I would affirm.

 Although a published decision of the court of appeals is binding on us, § 752.41(2), STATS., it cannot trump applicable supreme court precedent. In my view, the majority decision in Macherey does precisely that. Accordingly, I am bound not by Macherey but by the long, unbroken line of supreme-court precedent I cited in my Macherey dissent.