These tables are derived from information contained in 218 Wisconsin Supreme Court decisions that were turned up in a Nexis Uni search for decisions filed between September 1, 1951, and August 31, 1952. The total of 218 decisions does not include various orders pertaining to disciplinary matters involving lawyers, nor to petitions, motions, applications, and the like (generally disposed of without oral argument and in short per curiam decisions). I have also omitted Hughes v. Fetter, in which a per curiam filing set aside the court’s original mandate after it had been overruled by the US Supreme Court.
When two cases were, in effect, consolidated—one was simply said to be ruled by the decision in the other—the cases are counted as only one. This occurred with (1) Chernin v. International Oil Company (261 Wis. 543) and Chernin v. International Oil Company (261 Wis. 547); (2) Quady v. Sickl (260 Wis. 348) and Quady v. Sickl (260 Wis. 355); (3) State v. Harrison (260 Wis. 89) and State v. Harrison (260 Wis. 96); (4) Wuesthoff v. Wisconsin Dep’t of Taxation (261 Wis. 98) and Wuesthoff v. Wisconsin Dep’t of Taxation (261 Wis. 105); and (5) Wagner v. Peiffer (259 Wis. 566) and Peiffer v. Wagner (259 Wis. 583).
After deciding In re Baldwin’s Will, the justices responded to a motion for clarification by amending their mandate slightly. I have counted this case only once, though one could argue that it should be counted twice.
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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