Court Opinion

ID: 9712069
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:45:48.61687+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:09.397604
License: Public Domain

BROWN, J.
¶ 26. (concurring). Time and time again, we have seen worthless appendices filed since the court's inception in 1978. And as we see from reading the 1967 supreme court opinion in Dutcher v. Phoenix Insurance Co., 37 Wis. 2d 591, 155 N.W.2d 609 (1968), the problem was apparent long before the creation of the court of appeals.
*241¶ 27. I say "worthless" because a judgment— either in a civil or criminal case — does not begin to tell us how the trial judge decided an issue of importance to the appellate litigant. Often, however, that is all we get. Or, we may get the formal written findings of fact and conclusions of law. These also are meaningless in many cases because they either do not address the issues raised on appeal or are so uninformative that they do not give us the rationale employed by the trial court in deciding a certain issue. After all, most were drafted by the winning attorney, not the trial judge. Appellate lawyers need to bear in mind that an appeal obliges this court, as an intermediate appellate court, to consider whether the circuit court committed error. As a result, we need to consider what the circuit court said, whether evidenced in a memorandum decision or in a transcript. When an appendix fails to provide the circuit court's rationale, our full understanding of the case is put on hold until we can ferret it out in the record. Enough already.
¶ 28. As the lead opinion points out, this court has a very high caseload. In our struggle to keep up and make sure cases do not lag, we take our work home or on the road with us while the file itself remains at the court. The briefs are all we have when we are operating under these circumstances. It is exasperating, to say the least, to read a brief and not be able to see for ourselves how the trial court dealt with an issue before us on appeal. We have to wait until we are back at court to dig out the file and search for the parts of the record that are pertinent. And that goes for all three judges on a panel. The good appellate litigators, and there are many, provide us with the information we need so that we can do our work in an efficient manner. How hard can it be for all attorneys writing a brief to do the same?
*242¶ 29. The rule was amended to require certification of a proper appendix for a reason: we hoped to finally spur all appellate attorneys — not just the good ones — to give us the information we need. It is time that the rule was enforced. It is time that lawyers stop thinking that if they just provide a copy of the judgment and motion papers, it will be adequate. These are NOT relevant court entries. It is time that all attorneys understand that it is often not sufficient to simply include a copy of the formal findings of fact and conclusions of law. If elsewhere in the record, oral or written rulings or decisions show the trial court's reasoning regarding those issues, they should be included in the appendix. By the same token, inundating us with reams and reams of material bearing no relation to the precise issues before the court is another practice that should be avoided.
¶ 30. One more thing. I anticipate that there are a few lawyers who may concede that the appendix may not be "complete" if it contains a copy of the judgment or the formal findings of fact/conclusions of law or irrelevant entries from the record, but would argue that being "incomplete" is not the same thing as being "false." To those, I respond that if a lawyer certifies to us that the oral or written rulings or decisions showing the trial court's reasoning regarding the issues on appeal are contained in the appendix, and the ruling or rulings are not in the appendix, it is false. I cannot conceive of any other answer.