The primary issue in Benson v. City of Madison, 2017 WI 65, is clearly the question of whether the Wisconsin Fair Dealership Law (“WFDL”) reaches contractual relationships involving municipalities. As discussed here, this is an issue of first impression, and the Court’s holding has broad implications.
There are, however, additional aspects of the decision worth consideration. Three in particular bear mention.
First, the Wisconsin Supreme Court had not heard a WFDL case in a while. In the interim, the composition of the Court changed substantially, and that turnover yielded a majority oriented toward a more free-market paradigm. Some commentators have wondered how the WFDL would be applied by the current Court. Benson suggests that in many respects not much has changed. The Benson majority, joined by all five Justices perceived as more conservative, follows settled law granting the WFDL a broad construction. (Indeed, by holding that municipalities are covered by the WFDL, the majority significantly expands the law’s scope.) And it firmly forecloses arguments that a party can contract around the WFDL, nullifying a contractual provision that the City of Madison cited as exculpatory. See 2017 WI 65, ¶48.
Second, the Court shed a little light on the doctrinal Gordian knot at the heart of most WFDL litigation. The vast majority of WFDL cases turn on the question of whether the parties’ relationship constitutes a “community of interest.” This has always been a vague standard. Three decades ago, the Court identified two “guideposts” for this inquiry: “continuing financial interest” and “interdependence.” Ziegler Co. v. Rexnord, Inc., 139 Wis. 2d 593, 604-05, 407 N.W.2d 873 (1987). The Ziegler Court also identified ten, non-exclusive facets of a relationship that might shed light on one or both guideposts. See id. at 606. Lower courts have been somewhat vexed by applying the various facets—and others that might seem relevant in individual cases—to the guideposts. Benson provides some wiggle room, noting that the Ziegler facets need not all be measured in every case, because “it is more accurate to say that some or all ‘may’ be considered; the factors are meant to be a helpful aid in addressing the overriding community of interest question, not an unwieldy burden.” Benson, 2017 WI 65, n.15.
Third, the Court’s newest Justice, Dan Kelly, wrote a separate concurring opinion to, in his words, address “one persnickety point.” Id., ¶64 (Kelly, J., concurring). But his point is not a minor one: he disagrees with the majority about what goods and services should be considered the subject of the contract that binds the parties in a dealership. Justice Kelly believes that only those goods and services that belong to the grantor (here, the City of Madison) can be considered part of the dealership, while the majority opinion cites both those and additional goods and services provided wholly by the dealer (here, the golf pros). See id., ¶¶65-66. The fact that Justice Kelly raised this issue and that none of the other five Justices in the majority joined his concurrence can be read to suggest that a majority of the Court—at least four Justices—disagree with his reading of the statute and believe that a dealer can bring its own goods and services into a dealership relationship. That issue was not decisive here, but it could loom large in a future dispute about application of the WFDL (and in calculating damages due to the golf pros on remand).
