White v. Lunder
Wisconsin Supreme Court
225 N.W.2d 442 (1975)
- Written by Lauren Petersen, JD
Facts
Rosemary White was injured while boating with her husband, Lloyd White (plaintiff), and James Lunder (defendant). Rosemary sued Lunder to recover for her injuries. Lloyd sued Lunder to recover for loss of consortium and medical expenses. The jury determined that Rosemary was 30 percent causally negligent, Lloyd 33 percent, and Lunder 37 percent. Under Wisconsin’s comparative-negligence statute, a plaintiff is not barred from recovery by his or her own contributory negligence if the plaintiff’s negligence is not as great as the defendant’s negligence. The statute also provides that a plaintiff’s damages should be reduced proportionately by his or her own negligence. The trial judge attributed 63 percent of the boating accident’s causal negligence to Lloyd, charging Lloyd with the combined total of his own and his wife’s negligence. Because Lunder’s causal negligence was only 37 percent, the trial court found that Lloyd was contributorily negligent and consequently barred from recovering against Lunder. Lloyd appealed.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Beilfuss, J.)
What to do next…
Here's why 811,000 law students have relied on our case briefs:
- Written by law professors and practitioners, not other law students. 46,300 briefs, keyed to 988 casebooks. Top-notch customer support.
- The right amount of information, includes the facts, issues, rule of law, holding and reasoning, and any concurrences and dissents.
- Access in your classes, works on your mobile and tablet. Massive library of related video lessons and high quality multiple-choice questions.
- Easy to use, uniform format for every case brief. Written in plain English, not in legalese. Our briefs summarize and simplify; they don’t just repeat the court’s language.
