Summary Judgment – Civil Negligence

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WI Court of Appeals – District I

Case Name: Montreal J. Bully et al v. AllState Property and Casualty Insurance Company

Case No.: 2015AP895

Officials: Curley, P.J., Kessler and Brennan, JJ.

Focus: Summary Judgment – Civil Negligence

Montreal J. Bully and JaJuan R. Alexander (hereinafter “Bully”) appeal from an order by the trial court granting summary judgment to Allstate Property and Casualty Insurance Company (hereinafter “Allstate”). Bully raises five issues, only two of which are pertinent to our analysis. He claims the trial court erred in granting summary judgment because: (1) Allstate relied on inadmissible hearsay evidence, specifically the witness statements from the Milwaukee Police Department incident report (hereinafter “police report”); and (2) material facts are in dispute. We conclude that: (1) Bully is judicially estopped from arguing on appeal that the witness statements in the police report are inadmissible hearsay because he did not raise the issue below and in fact relied on the same parts of the police report to resist Allstate’s summary judgment motion; and (2) after Allstate as the moving party below presented facts from the police report to show that its driver, Samuel J. Bussanich, was not negligent, Bully failed to provide any rebuttal facts or reasonable inference of negligence to support his claim of material factual dispute. Accordingly, we affirm

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Attorney Derek A. Hawkins is the managing partner at Hawkins Law Offices LLC, where he heads up the firm’s startup law practice. He specializes in business formation, corporate governance, intellectual property protection, private equity and venture capital funding and mergers & acquisitions. Check out the website at www.hawkins-lawoffices.com or contact them at 262-737-8825.