These tables are derived from information contained in 258 Wisconsin Supreme Court decisions that were turned up in a Nexis Uni search for decisions filed between September 1, 1957, and August 31, 1958. The total of 258 decisions does not include various orders pertaining to petitions, motions, applications, and the like (generally disposed of without oral argument and in short per curiam decisions). A deadlocked (3-3) per curiam decision in Joint School District v. Thuss is also excluded.
Two entries were returned for Wiegman v. Alexander—the original ruling and a brief per curiam ruling that amended the mandate. Two entries also appeared for Petlock v. Kickhafer—the original ruling and a subsequent ruling that modified the mandate after a motion for rehearing. In each case, we will count only the original ruling.
In addition, Nexis Uni listed two decisions titled In re Estate of Rule pertaining to the same set of facts. The justices noted that one decision (3 Wis. 2d 301) “controlled” the other (3 Wis. 2d 305), and thus only the first is included in the following tables. In similar fashion, the court filed two decisions titled Dostal v. St. Paul-Mercury Indemnity Company on April 9, only one of which (4 Wis. 2d 1) is counted here. Two entries titled State v. Industrial Commission (4 Wis. 2d 472 and 4 Wis. 2d 476) were, in effect, resolved with a single decision, and hence this case, too, is counted only once.
Eight justices appear in several of the following tables because Justice Roland Steinle resigned on March 2 in order to run for the US Senate and was replaced on May 1 by Justice E. Harold Hallows.
The tables are available as a complete set and by individual topic in the subsets listed below.
Four-to-Three Decisions
Decisions Arranged by Vote Split
Frequency of Justices in the Majority
Distribution of Opinion Authorship
Frequency of Agreement Between Pairs of Justices
Average Time Between Oral Argument and Opinions Authored by Each Justice
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