Court Opinion

ID: 9855918
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:34:23.943727+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:37:17.615521
License: Public Domain

JANINE P. GESKE, J.
¶ 72; (concurring). I join the majority opinion. I agree with the majority that it need not reach the Article I, sec. 9 issue raised in Estate of Makos v. Wisconsin Masons Health Care Fund, 211 Wis. 2d 41, 564 N.W.2d 662 (1997), based on the facts of this case. Majority op. at 264.1 write merely to address the comments of Chief Justice Abrahamson's dissent and the response of Justice Crooks' concurrence regarding Article I, Section 9 of the Wisconsin Constitution.
¶ 73. Curiously, both writers address the effect today's majority opinion has on the multiple opinions comprising Makos. Their discussion of Makos is curious, and academic, because none of the four separate opinions in that case has precedential value.
*280¶ 74. In a unanimous opinion released less than two weeks after the Makos decision, this court said that none of the Makos opinions have precedential value. See Doe v. Archdiocese, 211 Wis. 2d 312, 334-35 n.11, 565 N.W.2d 94 (1997); see also, Ives v. Coopertools, 208 Wis. 2d 55, 559 N.W.2d 571 (1997) (per curiam), "our division on reasoning simply means that the analyses of the two concurrences have no precedential value," citing State ex rel. Thompson v. Jackson, 199 Wis. 2d 714, 719, 546 N.W.2d 140 (1996) (per curiam), and State v. Elam, 195 Wis. 2d 683, 685, 538 N.W.2d 249 (1995) (per curiam), "a majority of the participating judges must have agreed on a particular point for it to be considered the opinion of the court."
¶ 75. The Art. I, sec. 9 portion of the dissent is academic because it contends that the majority opinion overrules the mandate in Makos, sub silentio. Overruling the mandate of Makos is not possible. "A judicial decision is said to be overruled when a later decision, rendered by the same court or by a superior court in the same system, expresses a judgment upon the same question of law directly opposite to that which was before given, thereby depriving the earlier opinion of all authority as a precedent." Black's Law Dictionary 1105 (6th Ed. 1990). Neither the mandate of Makos, which reversed the court of appeals and remanded for trial, nor the multiple non-majority opinions by the justices participating in that case can be "overruled" because they never possessed authority as precedent.
¶ 76. The reasoning of Justice Crooks' concurrence is likewise academic when it criticizes the majority's statement about the discovery rule as "contrary to the lead opinion and a concurring opinion in Makos." A majority opinion is not bound to comply with non-precedential opinions. Justice Crooks is free to *281advocate adoption of the rationale he alone proposed in his Makos concurrence, as Chief Justice Abrahamson is free to advocate the position she joined in the Makos dissent, but the majority should not be faulted for failing to adopt that rationale when the facts do not even raise Art. I, sec. 9 as an issue.