Court Opinion

ID: 9522663
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 02:30:23.524986+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:03:30.473844
License: Public Domain

DYKMAN, J.
¶ 20. (dissenting). The supreme court's decision in Cook v. Cook, 208 Wis. 2d 166, 560 N.W.2d 246 (1997), has presented occasional dilemmas for some court of appeals panels. Cook held that the court of appeals lacked the power to overrule, modify, or withdraw language from its published opinions. Id. at 189-90.1 Faced with this inability to modify its published opinions, panels sometimes distinguished a problematic case on exceedingly fine points, or on assumed facts.
¶ 21. An example of this is LaCount v. Salkowski, 2002 WI App 287, 258 Wis. 2d 635, 654 N.W.2d 295. In LaCount, the court distinguished Beerbohm v. State Farm Mutual Insurance Co., 2000 WI App 105, 235 Wis. 2d 182, 612 N.W.2d 338. The court said:
Contrary to what Langer and certain legal digests say about Beerhohm, there is no statement by the court *303that the parents were divorced, only that they were living apart. Absent some indication the parents had anything but the natural parental custodial relationship to their child, we decline to apply Beerbohm to this case, and we limit Beerbohm's application of Wis. Stat. § 343.15(2)(b) to its facts.
LaCount, 258 Wis. 2d 635, ¶ 15.
¶ 22. But the parents to whom the court referred in Beerbohm were divorced. The indication of that is found in the state law library's copy of the Beerbohm briefs and appendices and contains the following from the appellant's brief: "Matthew Jordan's parents are divorced. His father and mother share joint custody." Appellant's brief at 6; Beerbohm, 235 Wis. 2d 182. The respondent agreed, referring to Matthew's mother as his father's ex-wife. Respondent's brief at 6; Beerbohm, 235 Wis. 2d 182.
¶ 23. We have previously examined briefs and appendices of published decisions to determine facts of which we were uncertain. See County of Eau Claire v. AFSCME Local 2223, 190 Wis. 2d 298, 304, 526 N.W.2d 802 (Ct. App. 1994). Without the factual distinction we have described, shown now to be false, Beerbohm and LaCount are indistinguishable.2
*304¶ 24. A similar sort of problem infects the majority's conclusion here. In both Preiss v. Preiss, 2000 WI App 185, 238 Wis. 2d 368, 617 N.W.2d 514, and here, the item in dispute was a State of Wisconsin sick leave account. There are no factual differences between the sick leave accounts in the two cases. One would reasonably conclude that the two accounts would be treated equally, considering the edict of Cook.
¶ 25. In Preiss, we held:
We determine that Alfred's sick leave account was erroneously considered an asset of the marital estate. Alfred cannot convey his interest in the account; he cannot gift it; he cannot transfer it. Because the account has no cash value and cannot be sold or transferred, it also does not have a fair market value .... A transaction that would determine the property's fair market value cannot be made. If property has no fair market value, the court cannot place an independent value upon it, and it should thus not be included as an asset in the marital estate.
The account does indeed have an intrinsic value. It has value to Alfred, but this value is not accessible to anyone else.
Preiss, 238 Wis. 2d 368, ¶¶ 14-15.
¶ 26. Preiss also considered Wall v. Wall, 215 Wis. 2d 595, 573 N.W.2d 862 (Ct. App. 1997). Wall concluded that an employer's gift of two vacations should not be considered income for purposes of child support. Id.
¶ 27. How does the majority avoid the holding in Preiss? First, by noting that Preiss concluded that a sick leave account does have value. That, of course, is *305true. Preiss holds that a sick leave account has an intrinsic value. But the fact that a sick leave account has an intrinsic value is irrelevant — Preiss reversed a trial court's valuation of a sick leave account even though the account had an intrinsic value.
¶ 28. The majority finds it relevant that Preiss also noted that a sick leave account could be considered in determining ability to pay maintenance or child support. Another truism; but so far, there is no difference between Preiss and the case we decide today. This is not a maintenance or child support case, but a property division case.3 So was Preiss. There is no reason why child support, maintenance, and property division must be treated alike or differently. The fact remains that whether it is a good or bad idea to treat them the same or differently, Preiss treats them differently, and Cook does not permit the majority to "overrule, modify or withdraw language from a published opinion of the court of appeals." Cook, 208 Wis. 2d at 189-90. To say that the case we decide today does not modify Preiss because Preiss acknowledges that a sick leave account has intrinsic value is not even a distinction without a difference. It is no distinction at all.
¶ 29. "If an asset can be valued with sufficient accuracy for purposes of determining appropriate maintenance and child support, we discern no reason why it cannot be a consideration under Wis. Stat. § 767.255(3)(j) for property division purposes." Majority at ¶ 10. A more accurate way to put this would be: "We therefore overrule the conclusion in Preiss *306that sick leave accounts cannot be valued with sufficient accuracy to permit them to he valued for property division purposes."
¶ 30. Finally, the majority compares the facts in Chen v. Chen, 142 Wis. 2d 7, 416 N.W.2d 661 (Ct. App. 1987), with the facts here, and asserts that if we concluded in Chen that unvested and unsalable stock options are divisible property, sick leave accounts should be treated similarly. That is an argument a party might make in a brief, or a factor we might use in a certification to the supreme court. But the only significance Chen has here is that it was not a sick leave account case and it was not followed by analogy in Preiss. The argument that Preiss should have followed Chen by analogy is just another way of saying "We prefer to analogize from a similar situation in Chen, and therefore overrule our ruling in Preiss."
¶ 31. There is no principled way to evade the supreme court's ruling in Cook that we are not to overrule or modify our prior published cases. Trial courts and the bar have been following Preiss, and using it to structure their stipulations and settlements. The majority's opinion will cause consternation for some, and provoke Wis. Stat. § 806.07 (2001-02) motions from others. Cook provides the appropriate answer to the majority's dislike of Preiss:
The court of appeals, however, is not powerless if it concludes that a prior decision of the court of appeals or the supreme court is erroneous. It may signal its disfavor to litigants, lawyers and this court by certifying the appeal to this court, explaining that it believes a prior case was wrongly decided. Alternatively, the court of appeals may decide the appeal, adhering to a prior case but stating its belief that the prior case was wrongly decided.
*307Cook, 208 Wis. 2d at 190.
¶ 32. Either way is acceptable to me. I would either reverse the trial court's division of Van's sick leave account and note that Preiss, Wall, and Chen might be reviewed by the supreme court, or I would certify the issue to the supreme court. I would not overrule Preiss by pretending to distinguish it. For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.

 The power of a court to hear and decide a particular case or controversy is described as its subject matter jurisdiction. In Interest of A.E.H., 161 Wis. 2d 277, 297, 468 N.W.2d 190 (1991).

 The court of appeals has solved this problem, in part, by holding that if a conflict exists between two published court of appeals cases, the first in time governs because Cook v. Cook, 208 Wis. 2d 166, 560 N.W.2d 246 (1997), holds that we do not have the power to overrule or modify our prior published opinions. See State v. Bolden, 2003 WI App 155, ¶¶ 9-11, 265 Wis. 2d 853, 667 N.W.2d 364 (holding that a court of appeals' subsequent published decision cannot overrule or modify a prior published decision). The result is that the LaCount v. Salkowski, 2002 WI App 287, 258 Wis. 2d 635, 654 N.W.2d 295, *304court lacked power to overrule Beerbohm v. State Farm Mutual Insurance Co., 2000 WI App 105, 235 Wis. 2d 182, 612 N.W.2d 338.

I recognize that another part of the majority opinion, with which I agree, pertains to maintenance. This dissent is only to the majority's treatment of the parties' property division.