Lommen Abdo’s appellate attorneys have been busy in 2024 handling a wide range of appeals in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and North Dakota. Below is a sampling of some of our most interesting decisions from the year and a few to watch for in 2025.
Notable Decisions in 2024
- St. Croix Scenic Coalition v. Village of Osceola, 2024 WL 4678022 (Wis. Ct. App. 2024)
This case arises out of a proposed development of a three story apartment building on the banks of the St. Croix River. After the Village of Osceola approved the plans, Lommen Abdo attorneys represented the St. Croix Scenic Coalition and neighboring property owners to challenge the approval. The circuit court concluded the Village erred in approving the plans because, among other reasons, it did not comply with requirements under Wisconsin law and the Village Code that the building be visually inconspicuous. The Wisconsin Court of Appeals reversed, resting its decision on a new statute which narrows the class of people who have standing to challenge a residential development approval. We have filed a petition for review with the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
- Nordahl v. Nordahl, 2024 WL 3565645 (Minn. Ct. App. 2024)
This spousal maintenance case addressed the question of whether an employer’s contributions to an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) can be counted as income to the spousal maintenance recipient when the employer makes the contribution, even though the employee makes no contribution and cannot immediately withdraw the funds. The Court of Appeals held that at least in some cases such a contribution could count as income available to meet the spousal maintenance recipient’s needs and remanded the case for further fact finding by the trial court. The Supreme Court denied review, leaving in place this surprising result. However, because the decision is nonprecedential, it remains unclear the extent to which future courts will follow the Court of Appeals reasoning.
- Dabney v. Van Vreede, 2024 WL 3405610 (Minn. Ct. App. 2024)
This case arose from a rear-end automobile accident in winter weather. The jury found the defendant was not negligent and Lommen Abdo attorneys succeeded in upholding the verdict on appeal. The case is notable because the Court of Appeals for the second time in an unpublished decision held that when a statute incorporates the general negligence standard, a plaintiff cannot rely on an alleged violation of that statute to establish negligence per se.
- Olson v. City of Cambridge, 2024 WL 4344828 (Minn. Ct. App. 2024)
This case concerned a number of issues, including the extent to which a court can take judicial notice of documents in prior litigation on a motion to dismiss a complaint. Previous case law had allowed courts to consider documents that are “embraced by the complaint.” The Court of Appeals clarified this standard is not limited to documents that are actually referenced by the complaint, but includes other pleadings in an underlying action that are not specifically mentioned in the complaint.
Ones to Watch for in 2025
- Scheurer v. Shrewsbury, 11 N.W.3d 832 (Minn. Ct. App. 2024)
This case addresses two technical, but important, issues in how to calculate prejudgment interest. First, the Court of Appeals held that under Minn. Stat. § 549.09, prejudgment interest can only be calculated from the time of the notice of claim if the action is commenced within two years of the notice of claim. If the action is not commenced within two years, the notice of claim is irrelevant for calculating prejudgment interest. Second, the Court of Appeals held that pre-verdict interest should be calculated based on the total amount of the verdict, before collateral source offsets are applied. This result is counterintuitive since it results in plaintiffs receiving “interest” on amounts that they are not entitled to recover. The Supreme Court recently granted review of this case and will likely issue a decision in 2025. No matter what the Supreme Court decides, the case will have a significant impact on how prejudgment interest is calculated in future cases.
- Niebuhr v. Sieberg, A24-0699
This case involves the intersection between workers compensation immunity and the Safety Responsibility Act. Under the workers compensation system, employees are generally immune for harm to their co-employees. Under the Safety Responsibility Act, the driver of a motor vehicle is deemed to be the agent of the vehicle’s owner. In this case, the plaintiff agreed the 17-year old employee was immune for the work-related death of his employer, but argued the employee’s parents could be liable because the employee was driving a vehicle owned by his parents at the time of the accident. The Court of Appeals is expected to issue a decision in this case in early 2025.
- King’s Cove Marina, LLC v. Lambert Commercial Construction, LLC, A24-0767
In 2021, the Minnesota Supreme Court decided that a failure to allocate a Miller-Shugart agreement between covered and uncovered claims does not make the settlement agreement unreasonable per se. The Supreme Court remanded the case for the trial court to reconsider the Miller-Shugart agreement in light of this new standard. The trial court did so and ordered that only $174,350 of the $2 million Miller-Shugart agreement was enforceable. The case is now returning to the Court of Appeals. A decision is expected from the Court of Appeals in mid-2025.
- Oatman v. Russell, A24-1262
This case presents a number of issues regarding the interpretation of the Uniform Child Custody Enforcement Act (UCCJEA). First, it will address whether the UCCJEA’s requirement that a child live in a state for “six months” to establish home state jurisdiction is satisfied when a child lives in the state for 180 days. It will also address whether significant connection jurisdiction – which requires that the child and a “parent or person acting as a parent” have a significant connection with the state – can be established by considering the connections of an alleged father when paternity has not yet been established.
Separately, Minnesota Supreme Court granted review in this case to address whether a trial court can proceed to decide the merits of a case while an interlocutory appeal regarding subject matter jurisdiction is pending.
An Update From the 2023 Year in Review
- Zander v. Morsette, 2024 ND 80, 6 N.W.3d 623
Last year, we previewed Zander v. Morsette, which resulted in a 2024 decision from the North Dakota Supreme Court. The case involved an automobile accident resulting in the death of two college students and injuries to a third. In the first trial, the jury awarded over $1 billion in noneconomic damages. In 2021, we successfully obtained reversal and a new trial from the North Dakota Supreme Court. A second trial was held in 2022. That jury awarded $175 million in noneconomic damages. In 2024, the North Dakota again reversed the jury’s verdict as excessive and shocking to the conscience.
Lommen Abdo’s appellate attorneys are proud to have been a part of these interesting cases in 2024 and look forward to handling many more challenging appeals in the year ahead.