Court Opinion

ID: 9675044
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:40:28.643565+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:31.194887
License: Public Domain

SUNDBY, J.
(concurring). It is undisputed that the sexual assaults which are the subject of this case occurred on twenty separate occasions. In a criminal prosecution, the assaulter could not successfully argue that he was subjected to double jeopardy if the state decided to prosecute him on twenty counts. I cannot read § 895.035(4), Stats., to provide that for civil liability purposes the twenty assaults were a single continuing act. The statute imposes a maximum recovery from any parent or parents "for damages resulting from any one act of a child . . . ." The word "act" has no special meaning; we may therefore rely on a standard dictionary definition. See State ex rel. Girouard v. Jackson Circuit Court, 155 Wis. 2d 148, 156, 454 N.W.2d 792, 795-96 (1990). Webster's Third New International Dictionary 20 (1976), defines "act" as: "[0]ne of *727the successive parts or performances each complete in itself_" Each of the assaulter's acts was "complete in itself."
Had the assaulter sexually assaulted twenty different persons, there would be no question but that his parents could be liable for damages for each such act under § 895.035(4), STATS. I do not see how we can interpret the statute any differently when the twenty separate acts consist of assaults of the same person. This may not have been the result intended by the legislature but I cannot conclude that the language of the statute is ambiguous. Therefore, I concur.