Court Opinion

ID: 9720830
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 08:42:25.534083+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:21.579431
License: Public Domain

Per Curiam
(on motion for rehearing). The principal issue raised by the attorney general’s brief on the motion for rehearing is that, to compel the two subpoenaed witnesses, *324aGutschenritter and Koepp, to give expert testimony for a witness fee of $5 each, as required by the trial court’s order, violates their constitutional rights. We quote from the state’s brief as follows:
“On behalf of the appraisers, it must be said that such a procedure is depriving them of their work product, forcing them to give the results of their studies of comparable sales, and other work which went into their appraisals, and forcing them to spend their valuable time sitting in a courtroom for one or more days for the fee of $5, thus depriving them of not only their property, i.e., their work product, but preventing them from doing other work through which they derive their living. This, we submit, would be in violation of the Fourth amendment of the United States constitution, which provides that there shall be no law abridging the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, and in violation of the Fifth amendment, which provides persons may not be deprived of their property without due process of law and that private property shall not be taken for public use. Further, it would be in violation of sec. 13, art. I of the Wisconsin constitution, which states ‘the property of no person shall be taken for public use without just compensation therefor.’ ”
We accept as true the attorney general’s statement that the state has not undertaken to compensate Gutschenritter and Koepp for the time they may have to spend in complying with the command of the subpoena and order of the trial court. The nature of the records and documents, listed in the subpoena duces tecum and the court’s order, clearly indicates that the two witnesses will be required to give expert testimony. In all likelihood it will be necessary for them to study their previously prepared data in order to give such testimony.
This being the situation, we deem it oppressive to require these witnesses to appear and testify for a witness fee of $5 each. Sub. (3) of sec. 326.12, Stats., as re-created by ch. 113, Laws of 1961, provides:
*324b“Orders for the protection of deponents. After notice is served for taking a deposition, upon motion reasonably made by any party or by the person to be examined, and, upon notice and for good cause shown, the court may make an order that the deposition shall not be taken, or that certain matters shall not be inquired into, or any other order which justice requires to protect the party or witness from annoyance, embarrassment, or oppression(Italics supplied.)
The 1961 legislature also saw fit to amend sec. 271.04 (2), Stats., to permit taxation of $25 costs for expert witness fees. Ch. 326, Laws of 1961. We determine that it would be proper, upon application to the circuit court in behalf of Gutschenritter and Koepp, for that court to order that these two witnesses be compensated further by the landowners as a condition to requiring them to give testimony by way of deposition under sec. 326.12, as now amended. It lies within the competence of the trial court to fix such compensation at whatever sum that court deems reasonable, but not to exceed $25 per day.
The reason this court does not amend its mandate to so provide is that the only relief sought here was an absolute writ prohibiting the taking of the depositions.
The motion for rehearing is denied without costs.