Each year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and Wisconsin’s two federal district courts issue decisions interpreting Wisconsin statutes and common law or predicting how the Wisconsin Supreme Court would rule on unaddressed questions. Although these decisions are not binding on Wisconsin courts, they influence how Wisconsin law develops.

This article reviews six recent federal decisions interpreting and applying Wisconsin statutes and common law relating to, among other issues, the actual malice standard in defamation claims brought by limited-purpose public figures, applicability of the economic loss doctrine where the operative contract is a commercial lease, interpretation of insurance policy exclusions, equitable estoppel and arbitration agreements, deceptive trade practices and antitrust claims arising from employer-paid training programs, and wage-and-hour class and collective actions.

Defamation — Actual Malice

In Jewel Sanitary Napkins, LLC v. Busy Beaver Publications, LLC,^[1] the Seventh Circuit waded into the complex world of Wisconsin and constitutional defamation law, focusing its analysis on whether a limited-purpose public figure acted with “actual malice,” such that a defamation claim against it could survive. Jewel Sanitary Napkins, LLC, a Georgia company, sold “all-natural” feminine hygiene pads under its REIGN brand, which it marketed to the Amish and Mennonite communities and promoted as containing a “Nobel Prize Winning material” — graphene — that Jewel claimed provided health benefits ranging from relieving cramps to boosting the immune system.^[2] Busy Beaver Publications, LLC, a Wisconsin company, publishes regional advertising magazines, including The Busy Beaver of PA+, in which Jewel’s distributors had placed hundreds of advertisements over the preceding several years.^[3]

In August 2022, a Busy Beaver salesman proofread, and the magazine published, a reader-submitted advertisement questioning whether graphene posed a safety risk; the reader had disclosed her name and address on the submission form but asked that they not be published.^[4] After a Jewel distributor complained, Busy Beaver — which does not print retractions but instead offers advertising credit — offered Jewel about three months of free advertising, amounting to more than six million pages, which Jewel declined before suing Busy Beaver for libel and trade libel.^[5]

Reviewing the district court’s entry of summary judgment in favor of Busy Beaver, the Seventh Circuit explained that under Wisconsin law, a defamation plaintiff must show that a challenged statement was false, communicated to a third party, and unprivileged.^[6] Further, the constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and press require that a limited-purpose public figure — a status Jewel conceded — must show that the statement was published with actual malice, i.e., “knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.”^[7]

Jewel first argued that the magazine’s proofreader showed actual malice by altering the reader’s submission, replacing several dashes and other punctuation marks with commas and a period before publication. The court rejected this argument, explaining that a plaintiff relying on an altered quotation must show that the alteration was both deliberate and resulted in a material change in the meaning conveyed, and that the changes here did not amount to an alteration “having a different effect on the mind of the reader” than the original.^[8] The court added that Jewel had not explained how the punctuation changes were either deliberate or material, and observed that Jewel’s own position — that the unaltered submission was equally false — undercut any argument that the edits themselves reflected a reckless disregard for the truth.^[9]

The court likewise rejected Jewel’s argument that the submission was so “inherently improbable and highly disparaging” that a jury could infer actual malice from its content alone, an argument grounded in the Seventh Circuit’s earlier decision in Babb v. Minder.^[10] The court distinguished Babb, which involved a defendant “definitely aware” of the probable falsity of the statements it published, explaining that here “there is no evidence that [the proofreader] or any other Busy Beaver employee recklessly disregarded the truth or had any serious doubts about the veracity of the claims” in the submission.^[11]

The court also corrected Jewel’s characterization of the record: Jewel claimed the proofreader had confronted the reader at her home about the submission before publication, but the record showed that visit occurred only after publication and after Busy Beaver had already been notified of the dispute.^[12] Further, the proofreader’s testimony that the submission caught his attention because it was “questioning somebody else’s product,” but that he “le[t] it go” because he “didn’t have a lot of time to do any research,” did not show the requisite subjective doubt, since “[f]ailure to investigate does not in itself establish bad faith.”^[13] This conclusion was supported by the facts that the proofreader reviewed roughly 1,400 advertisements each week, had no fact-checking role, and had no obvious reason to doubt a submission that was not inherently improbable given the manufacturer’s own marketing claims about its product’s “vibrational energy” and its use of graphene, a “highly conductive” material.^[14]

Jewel’s related argument that publishing the submission anonymously departed from Busy Beaver’s usual practice and thus evidenced actual malice fared no better. The court found the record showed Busy Beaver had previously published reader submissions anonymously, so declining to identify the author here did not depart from past practice, and Jewel’s responses to Busy Beaver’s proposed findings of fact, which largely asserted only that the findings were “self-serving,” failed to properly controvert them under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(e).^[15] The court also rejected Jewel’s reliance on St. Amant v. Thompson for the proposition that publishing an anonymous source shows actual malice, explaining that St. Amant concerns use of an “unverified anonymous” source, whereas here the reader had disclosed her name and address on the submission form even though she asked that they not be published, leaving fewer “obvious reasons” to doubt her veracity.^[16]

Finally, the court addressed Busy Beaver’s post-publication refusal to retract the advertisement. While Wisconsin law recognizes that, “in certain circumstances, refusal to retract can be evidence of actual malice,”^[17] the court held that Busy Beaver’s policy against retractions — combined with its offer of more than six million pages of free advertising in lieu of a retraction — did not show reckless disregard for the truth, and that Jewel offered no other evidence tying the refusal to actual malice.^[18]

Contracts — Economic Loss Doctrine

In Faulman Investment, Ltd. v. Engineered Products & Services, Inc.,^[19] the Eastern District of Wisconsin compared Wisconsin’s economic loss doctrine to Florida’s analogous independent tort doctrine while applying Wisconsin’s choice-of-law analysis. This required the court to analyze how each state would treat tort claims relating to a commercial lease and asset purchase agreement, and to predict whether Wisconsin courts would find the economic loss doctrine applies where the operative contract is a commercial lease.

The dispute arose after landlord Faulman Investment, Ltd., a Florida limited partnership, sued tenant Engineered Products and Services, Inc. (“EPSI”), a Wisconsin corporation, for breach of a commercial lease covering six properties in six different states. EPSI counterclaimed and filed a third-party complaint against Faulman’s general partner, two individual limited partners, and a dissolved corporation whose assets EPSI had purchased, alleging that Faulman and the third-party defendants were liable for breaches of the lease and a related asset purchase agreement and various tortious acts.

After addressing a motion to intervene by EPSI’s insurer, the court turned to the third-party defendants’ motion to dismiss. Because the parties disputed whether Wisconsin or Florida law governed EPSI’s negligence and misrepresentation claims, the court first analyzed whether a genuine conflict existed between the two states’ laws.^[20] It found that a conflict existed because Wisconsin’s economic loss doctrine (“ELD”) barred both claims while Florida’s analogous independent tort doctrine did not, because the court could reasonably infer from the pleadings that the relevant third-party defendants were not in privity of contract with EPSI.^[21] Privity is not a prerequisite to the application of Wisconsin’s ELD.^[22]

The court’s conflict analysis required it to determine whether the ELD applies where the operative contract is a commercial real estate lease — an issue no Wisconsin court has squarely addressed.^[23] Extending the reasoning of the Wisconsin Supreme Court in Van Lare v. Vogt, Inc. (which applied the ELD to a commercial real estate purchase agreement),^[24] the court explained that the doctrine’s core purpose of maintaining the distinction between contract and tort law applies with equal force to a “written, bargained-for contract… between two sophisticated parties,” regardless of whether that contract is a lease or a purchase agreement.^[25] The court noted that the parties did not identify any case precluding application of the ELD to leases of any kind.^[26] Applying that principle to EPSI’s negligence claim, the court reasoned that all of the negligent conduct EPSI alleged — including failure to disclose environmental hazards and failure to secure and maintain a burglarized property — ultimately pertained to maintenance obligations expressly addressed in the lease, and concluded that no authority exempts commercial leases from the doctrine.^[27]

The court reached the same result on EPSI’s misrepresentation claim, which alleged fraud in the inducement of both the lease and the asset purchase agreement. Although Wisconsin recognizes a narrow exception to the ELD for pre-contract fraud that is “extraneous to,” rather than “interwoven with,” the contract,^[28] the court held the exception inapplicable because EPSI’s alleged misrepresentations — such as the seller’s representation that it had no notice of environmental hazards — tracked specific contractual provisions and were therefore interwoven with, rather than extraneous to, the parties’ agreements.^[29]

Because Wisconsin and Florida law conflicted, the court applied Wisconsin’s two-step choice-of-law framework.^[30] At the first step, the court applied the grouping-of-contacts test, weighing the place of contracting, place of negotiation, place of performance, location of the contract’s subject matter, parties’ domiciles and places of business, and location of the injurious conduct and injury.^[31] Because the parties and the six leased properties were dispersed across multiple states and the record did not establish where the negotiations or the alleged misrepresentations occurred, the court found that neither state’s contacts were “clearly more significant” and proceeded to the second step: the five choice-influencing factors.^[32]

The court found that predictability of results favored Wisconsin because EPSI’s economic injuries were felt in Wisconsin, and “the place of a tort for conflicts purposes is not necessarily where the negligent act occurs but where the injury is felt.”^[33] Maintenance of interstate and international order did not favor either state, since Wisconsin had an interest in protecting EPSI as a resident corporation while Florida had a comparable interest in the third-party defendants who were its citizens.^[34] Simplification of the judicial task cut in different directions: it weighed slightly toward Florida law on the lease-related claims, since no Wisconsin court had addressed the doctrine’s application to commercial leases, but toward Wisconsin law on the agreement-related claims, since the court would need to resolve the same privity questions under Wisconsin law in adjudicating the accompanying breach of contract and lease claims.^[35] Advancement of the forum’s governmental interest weighed strongly in favor of Wisconsin law, given the state’s “clear and strong policy interest in maintaining a distinction between contract and tort law.”^[36] And application of the better rule of law did not favor either state, since neither state’s law was outdated or failed to reflect modern trends.^[37] Weighing these factors together, the court concluded that Wisconsin law governed EPSI’s negligence and misrepresentation claims in their entirety and applied the ELD to bar both.^[38]

The court allowed EPSI’s breach of contract and breach of lease claims to proceed against the general partner because the agreements’ language describing “the parties” and “their legal representatives” was ambiguous as to whether the general partner, who had signed as a representative, was also bound as a party.^[39] The court dismissed EPSI’s unjust enrichment claim against the dissolved corporation because the corporation was undisputedly a party to a valid contract,^[40] but granted leave to replead unjust enrichment against the general partner and individual limited partners because their status as parties to the contracts remained genuinely disputed.^[41] Finally, the court dismissed EPSI’s claims for an accounting and a constructive trust, reiterating that under Wisconsin law both are remedies rather than independent causes of action, and that an accounting is unavailable where, as here, EPSI had not shown a complete inadequacy of legal remedies.^[42]

The constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and press require that a limited-purpose public figure … must show that the statement was published with actual malice, i.e., ‘knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.’

Insurance — Interpretation of Policy Exclusions

The Seventh Circuit continued its practice of applying Wisconsin’s plain-meaning approach to policy interpretation in Hammond Power Solutions, Inc. v. National Union Fire Insurance Co. of Pittsburgh, PA,^[43] a coverage dispute over whether a commercial general liability exclusion for bodily injury “arising out of the actual, alleged or threatened exposure of person(s) or property to any radioactive matter or any form of radiation” precluded coverage for a lawsuit alleging that electromagnetic field (“EMF”) radiation from the insured’s transformers caused a plaintiff’s cancer.

The court began its analysis with a succinct recitation of Wisconsin law on interpretation of insurance agreements, explaining Wisconsin’s multi-step, textualist approach.^[44] Affirming summary judgment for the insurers, the court held that the exclusion’s broad language — particularly the phrase “any form” — unambiguously encompassed EMF radiation, since the parties agreed that electromagnetic fields qualify as “radiation.”^[45] The court rejected the manufacturer’s argument that the exclusion should be read narrowly under the linguistic canons of ejusdem generis (“of the same kind”) and noscitur a sociis (roughly, “a word is known by the company it keeps”), explaining that both canons require narrowing only when the operative text is ambiguous, and the disjunctive “or” separating “radioactive matter” from “any form of radiation” defeated any argument that the two phrases should be read together.^[46] The court likewise rejected the manufacturer’s argument that the provision’s title, “Radioactive Matter Exclusion,” created ambiguity, reiterating that under Wisconsin law “a caption may not be used to create ambiguity where none exists.”^[47]

In so ruling, the court explained it declined to follow the Illinois Supreme Court’s decision in American States Insurance Co. v. Koloms,^[48] which construed a similar pollution exclusion narrowly to avoid an absurd result. The court noted that Illinois’s willingness to look beyond plain text in Koloms is inconsistent with Wisconsin’s textualist approach, and it favorably contrasted the Wisconsin Court of Appeals’ decision in Connors v. Zurich American Insurance Co.,^[49] which gave a “standard” pollution exclusion its broad, ordinary meaning. The court also declined to weigh the manufacturer’s argument that other insurers offer EMF-specific exclusions, holding that under Wisconsin law “absent ambiguity, the intent of the parties must be determined from the four corners of the insurance policy itself.”^[50]

Arbitration — Equitable Estoppel and Non-Signatory Retailers

In Harper v. TCC Wireless, LLC,^[51] the Eastern District of Wisconsin denied a motion to compel arbitration brought by the operator of T-Mobile retail stores, offering a detailed roadmap for Wisconsin practitioners litigating whether a non-signatory to an arbitration agreement may nonetheless enforce it.

Plaintiff Briuna Harper alleged that after she traded in her old phone at a TCC Wireless-operated T-Mobile store, a store employee accessed the phone and downloaded explicit images and videos she had saved in a hidden folder. TCC Wireless moved to compel arbitration based on the plaintiff’s arbitration agreement with T-Mobile, even though TCC Wireless was not a signatory to that agreement.

The court first held that neither of two provisions in T-Mobile’s terms and conditions reached TCC Wireless. One provision extended arbitration to claims against “other parties” such as “suppliers, dealers, authorized retailers, or third-party vendors,” but only “whenever [the customer] also assert[s] claims against [T-Mobile] in the same proceeding” — a condition not met here.^[52] The other provision defined “T-Mobile” to include its “subsidiaries, assignees, and agents,” but TCC Wireless failed to develop any argument that it was T-Mobile’s agent, and the court observed that “an authorized retailer” is not automatically an “agent” any more than “a corner convenience store is an agent for every brand of product it sells.”^[53]

The court next addressed TCC Wireless’ argument that T-Mobile’s arbitration provision should apply under the doctrine of equitable estoppel because TCC Wireless relied upon the provision. The court first had to decide which state’s law governed, since T-Mobile’s terms designated the law of the customer’s Texas billing address while TCC Wireless argued for Wisconsin law. The court held that a choice-of-law provision inside an allegedly inapplicable contract cannot be used to determine whether that very contract applies to the dispute, so it applied Wisconsin choice-of-law principles and ultimately Wisconsin substantive law.^[54]

Wisconsin recognizes four elements of equitable estoppel: (1) action or nonaction; (2) on the part of one against whom estoppel is asserted; (3) which induces reasonable reliance thereon by the other, either in action or non-action; and (4) which is to the relying party’s detriment.^[55] Applying that framework, the court held that TCC Wireless could not satisfy the first element, since its own submissions showed only that Harper had entered into arbitration agreements with T-Mobile — “a distinct entity” — and not with TCC Wireless itself, leaving no action or non-action by Harper directed at TCC Wireless on which to ground an estoppel.^[56] The reliance element failed for the related reason that TCC Wireless could not show that the plaintiff had induced any reasonable reliance on her part: TCC Wireless’ belief that T-Mobile’s arbitration clause covered disputes with its retail stores was, at most, a subjective and mistaken assumption that Harper never induced, and there was no evidence she knew of, or could reasonably have anticipated, that reliance such that she was obligated to speak up and correct it.^[57] Because the reliance element was not met, the court did not need to separately analyze the fourth element, detriment, and held that Harper’s arbitration agreement with T-Mobile did not extend to her separate dispute with TCC Wireless.^[58]

The court also rejected TCC Wireless’ “intertwined claims estoppel” theory, under which a close relationship between a non-signatory and a signatory, combined with claims “intimately founded in and intertwined with the underlying contract obligations,” can justify compelling arbitration.^[59] Relying on an unpublished Wisconsin Court of Appeals decision, Mayer v. Soik,^[60] as the best available prediction of how the Wisconsin Supreme Court would treat the doctrine, the court found that although the complaint contained substantial background references to T-Mobile, the plaintiff’s actual claims against TCC Wireless did not rely on the terms of her T-Mobile contracts, so intertwined claims estoppel did not apply.^[61]

Employment Law — Deceptive Trade Practices, Antitrust, and Unlawful Penalties

In Harris v. Roehl Transport, Inc.,^[62] the Western District of Wisconsin analyzed how Wisconsin law applied to an employer-funded commercial driver’s license (“CDL”) training program that conditioned forgiveness of the loan for CDL training on continued employment. The plaintiff alleged that Roehl Transport hired her under a “Get Your CDL” program requiring her to sign an agreement to repay $7,000 in training costs unless she drove 120,000 solo miles (about 15 months) for Roehl, and that Roehl fired her mid-training and then tried to collect the debt. She brought claims under the Wisconsin Deceptive Trade Practices Act, the Wisconsin “mini-Sherman” Antitrust Act, and Wisconsin common law prohibiting unenforceable contractual penalties.

The court denied Roehl’s motion to dismiss the deceptive trade practices claim, holding that the plaintiff plausibly alleged that Roehl’s recruitment advertisements violated sections ATCP 116.02-.05 of the Wisconsin Administrative Code, which require employers to disclose any “purchase or investment” a recruit “must make” to obtain a work offer.^[63] Because no Wisconsin court had interpreted these regulations in their current form, the court was required to make an “Erie guess” and predict how the Wisconsin Supreme Court would decide the question if it were presented to that court today.^[64] To interpret the relevant code sections, the Western District applied Wisconsin’s rules of statutory interpretation, which the Wisconsin Supreme Court applies equally to administrative regulations.^[65] Under those interpretive rules, a court consults intrinsic sources first — the provision’s text, related statutes and phrases, its place within the broader regulatory structure, its purpose, and its drafting history — because those sources are primary in determining a regulation’s plain meaning, and turns to extrinsic sources, such as legislative or rulemaking history, only secondarily, either to confirm that plain meaning or to resolve any genuine ambiguity.^[66]

Applying that framework, the court began with the regulation’s own definitions, holding that the definition of a “purchase or investment” — which expressly includes “a contract to make” a payment from a recruit to a recruiter — encompassed a contractual promise to repay training costs. The court so concluded even though the obligation was triggered only by a future termination, reasoning that nothing in the regulation’s text limited the definition to payments due before the recruit began work.^[67] The court then turned to extrinsic sources to confirm that plain-meaning reading, citing a 1996 rulemaking order from the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection in which the agency explained that it had broadened the rule to reach recruitment schemes aimed at obtaining money from job applicants generally, rather than only schemes requiring a recruit to purchase goods before receiving a work offer.^[68]

Turning to the plaintiff’s antitrust claim, the court explained that the Wisconsin Antitrust Act “mirrors the federal Sherman Act” and “the Wisconsin Supreme Court has long made clear that federal interpretations of the Sherman Act should guide interpretation of the Wisconsin Act.”^[69] Relying heavily on the Seventh Circuit’s decision in Heder v. City of Two Rivers,^[70] which held that a similar firefighter-training repayment obligation was not an unreasonable restrictive covenant under Wis. Stat. section 103.465 because it was not “linked to competition,” the court held that the Wisconsin Antitrust Act likewise requires a showing that the challenged provision restrains competition in the labor market.^[71] Because Roehl’s repayment obligation applied “in any scenario in which her employment ended” rather than only when an employee went to work for a competitor, and nothing prevented the plaintiff from working for another trucking company, the court dismissed the antitrust claim.^[72]

Finally, the court dismissed the plaintiff’s claim that the repayment obligation was a contractual penalty that was unenforceable as a matter of Wisconsin public policy. The court explained that under Wisconsin law, a potentially unlawful stipulated-damages clause is triggered by breach of contract, whereas the CDL repayment obligation was triggered simply by the employee’s participation in training at the outset of employment — a structural mismatch fatal to the penalty theory.^[73]

“The court’s conflict analysis required it to determine whether the [economic loss doctrine] applies where the operative contract is a commercial real estate lease — an issue no Wisconsin court has squarely addressed.”

Wage-and-Hour Class and Collective Actions

Harwell-Payne v. Cudahy Place Senior Living LLC^[74] illustrates both the practical difficulties of maintaining parallel Rule 23 class and Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) collective actions in Wisconsin federal court and a substantive split between the Seventh Circuit and the Wisconsin Court of Appeals over the compensability of short breaks. The Eastern District of Wisconsin denied the plaintiff’s third attempt at Rule 23 certification and her motion to reconsider the denial of an earlier certification motion, but the decision’s most significant holding for Wisconsin practitioners concerns the interplay between rest periods and meal periods under Wisconsin’s wage-and-hour regulations.

In its 2023 decision in Wirth v. RLJ Dental, S.C.,^[75] the Seventh Circuit held, as a prediction of Wisconsin law, that Wisconsin’s regulatory scheme “focuses on what the employer provided, not what the employee elected,” so an employer that offers a bona fide 30-minute meal period is not required to compensate an employee who chooses to cut the break short. The plaintiff in Harwell-Payne argued that the Wisconsin Court of Appeals’ intervening decision in Freeman v. SL Greenfield, LLC^[76] — which held that Wis. Admin. Code section DWD 272.12(2)(c) creates “a bright-line rule” under which any break shorter than 30 consecutive minutes cannot, by definition, be a bona fide meal period — required the court to reconsider its reliance on Wirth.

The Eastern District declined to do so, explaining that only a decision of the Wisconsin Supreme Court — not an intermediate appellate decision — can override a Seventh Circuit prediction of state law.^[77] The Seventh Circuit previously explained in Reiser v. Residential Funding Corp. that because “under Erie our task in diversity litigation is to predict what the state’s highest court will do,” only “[a] decision by a state’s supreme court terminates the authoritative force of our decisions interpreting state law[.]”^[78] The Seventh Circuit further explained that in contrast to high court decisions, “decisions of intermediate state courts … are just prognostications. They could in principle persuade us to reconsider and overrule our precedent; assuredly they do not themselves liberate district judges from the force of our decisions.” Because the Wisconsin Supreme Court had denied the petition for review in Freeman, the Eastern District held that Wirth remained controlling authority binding on the district court regardless of Freeman.^[79] Wirth’s employer-focused rule will thus govern similar claims in Wisconsin federal courts unless and until the Wisconsin Supreme Court accepts review of a similar case in the future and adopts the court of appeals’ reasoning in Freeman.

Endnotes

[1] 178 F.4th 375 (7th Cir. 2026). ^

[2] Id. at 379. ^

[3] Id. ^

[4] Id. at 379-80. ^

[5] Id. at 380. ^

[6] Id. at 380-81 (citing In re Storms v. Action Wis., Inc., 2008 WI 56, ¶ 37, 309 Wis. 2d 704, 750 N.W.2d 739). ^

[7] Id. (citing New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 279-80 (1964)). Where the plaintiff does not concede its status as a limited-purpose public figure, Wisconsin courts apply a three-part test. A defamation plaintiff can be found to be a limited-purpose public figure if: (1) the plaintiff is involved in a public controversy; (2) the plaintiff’s role in the controversy is more than trivial or tangential; and (3) the alleged defamation was germane to the plaintiff’s participation in the controversy. Maguire v. Journal Sentinel, Inc., 232 Wis. 2d 236, 243, 605 N.W.2d 881 (Ct. App. 1999). ^

[8] Id. at 381-82 (quoting Masson v. New Yorker Mag., Inc., 501 U.S. 496, 517 (1991)) (citation modified). ^

[9] Id. at 382. ^

[10] Id. (citing Babb v. Minder, 806 F.2d 749, 756-58 (7th Cir. 1986)). ^

[11] Id. at 382-83. ^

[12] Id. at 382. ^

[13] Id. at 382-83 (quoting St. Amant v. Thompson, 390 U.S. 727, 733 (1968)). ^

[14] Id. ^

[15] Id. at 383. ^

[16] Id. (quoting St. Amant, 390 U.S. at 732). ^

[17] Id. (citing Milsap v. Journal/Sentinel, Inc., 100 F.3d 1265, 1271 (7th Cir. 1996)). ^

[18] Id. ^

[19] 830 F. Supp. 3d 776, No. 24-CV-1460, 2026 WL 962840 (E.D. Wis. 2026). ^

[20] 2026 WL 962840, at *7-*9. ^

[21] Id. at *8-*9. ^

[22] Id. at *7 (citing Digicorp, Inc. v. Ameritech Corp., 2003 WI 54, ¶ 65, 262 Wis. 2d 32, 662 N.W.2d 652, 666). ^

[23] Id. at *8. ^

[24] 2004 WI 110, 274 Wis. 2d 631, 683 N.W.2d 46. ^

[25] Faulman, 830 F. Supp. 3d 776, 794 (E.D. Wis. 2026) (quoting Van Lare v. Vogt, Inc., 2004 WI 110, ¶ 21, 274 Wis. 2d 631). ^

[26] Id. ^

[27] Id. at *8. ^

[28] Id. (citing Digicorp, Inc. v. Ameritech Corp., 2003 WI 54, ¶¶ 47, 52, 262 Wis. 2d 32, 662 N.W.2d 652). ^

[29] Id. ^

[30] Id. at *6 (citing NCR Corp. v. Transport Ins. Co., 2012 WI App 108, ¶¶ 13-14, 344 Wis. 2d 494, 823 N.W.2d 532). ^

[31] Id. at *10 (citing NCR, 2012 WI App 108, ¶ 13, 344 Wis. 2d 494). ^

[32] The five choice-influencing factors are: (1) predictability of results; (2) maintenance of interstate and international order; (3) simplification of the judicial task; (4) advancement of the forum’s governmental interests; and (5) application of the better rule of law. Faulman, 2026 WL 962840, at *10 (citing NCR Corp., 2012 WI App 108, ¶ 14, 344 Wis. 2d 494). ^

[33] Id. at *10 (quoting Schimpf v. Gerald, Inc., 52 F. Supp. 2d 976, 1003 (E.D. Wis. 1999)). ^

[34] Id. at *11. ^

[35] Id. ^

[36] Id. ^

[37] Id. ^

[38] Id. ^

[39] Id. at 20-21. ^

[40] Id. at 21-22. ^

[41] Id. at 22-23. ^

[42] Id. (discussing Action Rentals Holdings, LLC v. Wacker Neuson America Corp., No. 22-CV-777, 2023 WL 156278 (E.D. Wis. Jan. 11, 2023) (unpublished)). ^

[43] 142 F.4th 945 (7th Cir. 2025). ^

[44] Id. at 949-50. ^

[45] Id. at 950-51. ^

[46] Id. at 952-53. ^

[47] Id. at 954-55 (quoting Wadzinski v. Auto-Owners Ins. Co., 2012 WI 75, ¶ 23, 342 Wis. 2d 311, 818 N.W.2d 819). ^

[48] 177 Ill. 2d 473, 687 N.E.2d 72 (1997). ^

[49] 2015 WI App 89, 365 Wis. 2d 528, 872 N.W.2d 109. ^

[50] Hammond Power, 142 F.4th at 955-56 (quoting Sambs v. City of Brookfield, 66 Wis. 2d 296, 317, 224 N.W.2d 582 (1975)). ^

[51] 813 F. Supp. 3d 894 (E.D. Wis. 2025). ^

[52] Id. at 899-900. ^

[53] Id. at 900. ^

[54] Id. at 901-02 (citing Winkelman v. Midland Credit Mgmt., No. 3:23-cv-407 (VAB), 2024 WL 3551152 (D. Conn. July 27, 2024) (unpublished)). ^

[55] Id. at 902 (citing Affordable Erecting, Inc. v. Neosho Trompler, Inc., 2006 WI 67, ¶ 33, 291 Wis. 2d 259, 715 N.W.2d 620). ^

[56] Id. at 903. ^

[57] Id. ^

[58] Id. (citing Affordable Erecting, 2006 WI 67, ¶ 33, 291 Wis. 2d 259). ^

[59] Id. (quoting Hays v. HCA Holdings, Inc., 838 F.3d 605, 610 (5th Cir. 2016)). ^

[60] No. 2020AP199, 2021 WL 3073073 (Wis. Ct. App. July 21, 2021) (unpublished). ^

[61] Harper, 813 F. Supp. 3d at 904-05. ^

[62] No. 25-cv-227-wmc, 2026 WL 1506705 (W.D. Wis. May 29, 2026) (slip copy). ^

[63] Id. at 4-5 (citing Wis. Admin. Code § ATCP 116.02). ^

[64] Green Plains Trade Grp., LLC v. Archer Daniels Midland Co., 90 F.4th 919, 927 (7th Cir. 2024); Smith v. RecordQuest, LLC, 989 F.3d 513, 519 (7th Cir. 2021) (citing Erie R.R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64, 78 (1938)). ^

[65] Harris, 2026 WL 1506705, at *4 (citing DaimlerChrysler v. Labor & Indus. Rev. Comm’n, 2007 WI 15, ¶ 10, 299 Wis. 2d 1, 727 N.W.2d 311). ^

[66] Harris, 2026 WL 1506705, at *4 (quoting Service Emps. Int’l Union Healthcare Wis. v. Wisconsin Emp. Rels. Comm’n, 2025 WI 29, ¶ 8, 416 Wis. 2d 688, 22 N.W.3d 876). ^

[67] Harris, 2026 WL 1506705, at *5 (citing Wis. Admin. Code § ATCP 116.01(5)). ^

[68] Id. (citing Dkt. #22-1, Order of the Wis. Dep’t of Agric., Trade & Consumer Prot., Repealing and Recreating Rules, at 2 (May 30, 1996)). ^

[69] Id. at *7 (quoting Arandell Corp. v. Xcel Energy Inc., 149 F.4th 883, 889 (7th Cir. 2025)). ^

[70] 295 F.3d 777 (7th Cir. 2002). ^

[71] Harris, 2026 WL 1506705, at 7-8. ^

[72] Id. at *9. ^

[73] Id. at 10 (citing Wassenaar v. Panos, 111 Wis. 2d 518, 528, 331 N.W.2d 357 (1983)). ^

[74] No. 21-cv-328-pp, 2026 WL 936168 (E.D. Wis. Mar. 31, 2026) (slip copy). ^

[75] 59 F.4th 270 (7th Cir. 2023). ^

[76] 2025 WI App 30, 416 Wis. 2d 388, 21 N.W.3d 794. ^

[77] Harwell-Payne, 2026 WL 936168, at *27 (quoting Reiser v. Residential Funding Corp., 380 F.3d 1027, 1029 (7th Cir. 2004)). ^

[78] Id. ^

[79] Id. at *28. ^