Court Opinion

ID: 9709530
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 03:50:14.575016+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:49.730928
License: Public Domain

HOOVER, J.
(concurring). I concur with the majority's implicit conclusion that the Wisconsin Consumer Act defines a lease from the perspective of the merchant's obligation period. I accordingly agree that *596LeBakken's conditional obligation to permit Warnell to have possession of the appliance for twenty months renders this a consumer lease under § 421.301(11), Stats. I do not agree, however, that we can determine the transaction to be a consumer credit sale under § 421.301(10).
I concur with the majority's construction of § 421.301(9), Stats., which defines a consumer credit sale. This transaction meets the first "prong" described in the majority opinion in that Warnell agreed to pay "a sum substantially equivalent to or in excess of the aggregate value of the goods or real property involved,"1 as the majority opinion explains. I cannot, however join in the conclusion that the second requirement under the statute, option to purchase for a nominal consideration, is also satisfied.
Rent-A-Center, Inc. v. Hall, 181 Wis. 2d 243, 255-56, 510 N.W.2d 789, 794-95 (Ct. App. 1993), provides four factors2 that may be considered in *597determining whether the purchase option price is nominal. The majority relies on the fourth factor; whether the lessee has "any sensible alternative" to exercising the option. Whether an alternative exists to exercising the purchase option and whether the alternative is sensible seem to be questions of fact rather than law. No evidence was presented on this factor. I am not prepared to say on a record that did not address the issue that, as a matter of law, had the lease been fulfilled, Warnell would have had no sensible alternative but to pay $179.95 for a twenty-month-old refrigerator originally valued at $551.08. I would thus decide this case only on the consumer lease issue.

 See § 421.301(9), Stats.

 See majority at 592-93. The first factor is inapplicable because no evidence of the refrigerator's fair market value was presented at trial. The option price of $179.95 is more than 18% of the $992.20 total rental amount. The option price is almost 33% of the $551.08 cash price for. which the refrigerator could have been purchased. It seems at the very least a fair conclusion that the option is not nominal under the latter two factors.
The majority, by enumerating the Rent-A-Center, Inc. v. Hall, 181 Wis. 2d 243, 255-56, 510 N.W.2d 789, 794-95 (Ct. App. 1993), factors in the disjunctive, suggests that a finding that an option payment is nominal may rest on any one of the four factors. I am not confident that Rent-A-Center necessarily bears such an interpretation. As an example, the Rent-A-Center court discussed the factors in the conjunctive, perhaps implying that weighing all four factors may be appropriate. It is true that the court was ultimately persuaded by a single factor in con-*597eluding that the optional purchase price was nominal. It is equally true, however, that the court considered each of the factors in turn.