Attorney Kent A. Tess-Mattner's Legal Cases

Divorce and separation

Lubinski v. Lubinski

Sep 25, 2008

OUTCOME: Unfavorable trial court decision reversed

Post-divorce case. Remarried father of young son with limited placement during the school year but primary placement during the summer deployed to Iraq. Upon learning of deployment, moved court to al ... low his new wife (stepmother) to exercise his placement schedule in his absence. Stepmother also filed for same on her own behalf as her visitation schedule while husband deployed. The trial court granted the motions and entered an injunction in favor of father and stepmother. I appealed on behalf of mother, and the Wisconsin Court of Appeals reversed the trial court. It held that the father could not assign his placement rights to a third party, and that the stepmother had no right to seek a visitation schedule where mother was not denying all visitation.

Real estate

Countrywide Home Loans v. Schmidt, et al.

Oct 10, 2007

OUTCOME: Favorable trial court decison affirmed on appeal

I represented Jeanne Mayer, who contracted to buy a house for $300,000 and had to sue for specific performance. While that action was pending, Countrywide loaned the seller $360,000 despite a lis pend ... ens in favor of Mayer, and paid off $260,000 in mortgages that predated the lis pendens. In a separate appeal (which I also successfully handled), the Wisconsin Court of Appeals held that Mayer was entitled to specific performance. Countrywide in the meantime sued the seller for foreclosure, and joined Mayer because of her lis pendens. It plead equitable subrogation against her, and claimed that it was entitled to recoup from her the $260,000 it paid off, plus interest on the old mortgages since the payoff and taxes and insurance it paid, all adding up to $320,000, or $20,000 more than Mayer's purchase price for the property. The Wisconsin Court of Appeals held that equitable subrogation did not require payment of interest, taxes, or insurance because she was an innocent party. Mayer was allowed to eforce her purchase contract as written.

Real estate

Steinbach v. Green Lake Sanitary District

Jun 06, 2006

OUTCOME: Successful appeal before the WI Supreme Court

Along with co-counsel who referred the case to me for appeal, I reprsented unit owners in a condominium who protested a notice of assessment from the local sanitary district when sewer service was exte ... nded to the condominum. The trial court sided with the unit owners, and the sanitary district appealed to the Wisconsin Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals reversed the trial court, and I successfully petitioned the Wisconsiin Supreme Court to review the decision. After full briefing and oral argument, the Wisconsin Supreme Court agreed with our position and reversed the Court of Appeals. It held in its decision that an availability charge assessed against each condominium unit served by a sewer extension through a single connection from the condominium lot to the sewer was not levied uniformly and imposed an inequitable cost burden as compared with the benefit accruing to the petitioners and to all benefited properties. The availability charge lacked a reasonable basis because: 1) there was no nexus between the availability charge and the district's recovery of the capital cost to it to provide sanitary sewer service to individual lots; 2) other lots with multiple habitable units and were provided the same sewer service through one stub were assessed only one availability charge; and 3) there was no showing that the condominium owners received a greater benefit than was provided to other lots that were affected by the sewer extension. Steinbach v. Green Lake Sanitary District, 2006 WI 63, 291 Wis. 2d 11, 715 N.W.2d 195.

Divorce and separation

Chen v. Warner

May 06, 2005

OUTCOME: Successful appeal before WI Supreme Court

The Wisconsin Supreme Court affirmed the circuit court's conclusion that a physician-mother's post-judgment decision to quit her employment to stay home with the children (with which whom she had share ... d equal placement with the physician-father), was not shirking and, thus, entitled her to an increase in child support from her former spouse, who is also a physician. I represented the mother before the Wisconsin Supreme Court, including full briefing and oral argument.

Antitrust and trade law

Market Force, Inc. v. Wauwatosa Realty Company, et al.

Jul 11, 1990

OUTCOME: Success on federal appeal after summary judgment.

I represented the target defendant in a federal antitrust case brought by a buyer's broker. Client posted to MLS that it would pay only a referral fee to bueyr's brokers. Some of the other members of ... the same MLS then posted the same or similar policy statements, in a "copy cat" fashion. I was successful in getting summary judgment from the federal district court because there was no proof of conspiracy. Plaintiff appealed to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. After full briefing and oral argument, the Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court, holding, among many other holdings, that evidence of parallel refusals to deal has no probative force where at least one defendant can fully explain valid business reasons for the policy, and there is no evidence of any communication among the alleged co-conspirators.

Kent A. Tess-Mattner's Legal Cases (5)

Lubinski v. Lubinski

Countrywide Home Loans v. Schmidt, et al.

Steinbach v. Green Lake Sanitary District

Chen v. Warner

Market Force, Inc. v. Wauwatosa Realty Company, et al.