Floodwaters dampened court activities

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Like most people who regularly work at the Jefferson County Courthouse, Clerk of Court Carla Robinson typically enjoys a short morning commute.

But torrential rains and rampant flooding in mid-June turned the popular Main Street thoroughfare into a miniature lake. The two bridges on Wisconsin Avenue and Highway 26 providing direct access to the courthouse only re-opened within the last week.

“Personally, the drive takes about 15 minutes, but it was closer to 45 minutes because of the detour, and at $4 a gallon, that’s not fun,” said Robinson.

With water levels finally receding and travel times improving, Robinson and other area court staff discussed the professional and personal disruptions caused by the storms.

Better Safe than Sorry

In addition to several members of her staff suffering flood damage in their homes, Robinson said at least one trial was delayed in Jefferson because not enough jurors made it and one hearing had to be rescheduled when the court closed early on June 13.

“I think people probably didn’t show up because they were part of the clean-up effort,” said Robinson, who noted that judges were somewhat lenient with appearances given the circumstances.

JoAnne F. Kloppenburg, an attorney with the Wisconsin Department of Justice, was commuting from Madison when she learned that the hearing in her complex forfeiture case has been postponed be-cause the court closed at 2:30 p.m.

It was the last case on the docket for the day, but Kloppenburg said she had no problem turning around and heading back.

“The clerk called and said they were closing the whole office because water was rising around the building and she wasn’t sure they could get out,” said Kloppenburg. “Much better to be safe than stuck in the water somewhere.”

The hearing has since been calendared for late July.

Farther west in Sauk County, almost 30 trials were suspended during the week of June 16.
Rather than risk the safety of those involved with the calendared cases, presiding Judge James Evenson elected to reset the docket until after area roads became drivable.
“Basically, we concluded that we didn’t want to try and bring a jury in, because so many roads in the county were impassable,” said Evenson. “People had other concerns than coming into court.”

Evenson said he was accommodating to those people who asked for continuances and he has not heard any complaints from litigants or lawyers who had their case postponed.

“One of problems we had was we didn’t know what the problems were,” said Evenson. “We didn’t know the extent of the damage right away.”

Wet and Wild

Flooding problems were more immediately visible in Winnebago County, where the courthouse in Oshkosh took on several inches of water.

Water worked its way into the jury assembly room, located on the lowest level of the building.

“It poured in like a river,” said Clerk of Court Diane Fremgen, who was greeted by the sound of Shop Vacs the morning of June 13 after the flooding.

Maintenance workers made relatively short work of the standing water that seeped in through an area near the loading docks, said Fremgen. Damp carpeting aside, she said there was no permanent damage to the room.

No jurors were scheduled to come in the day after the flooding, but Fremgen said provisions could have been taken to accommodate people.

“We joked about buying rubber flip flops for the jurors, but luckily we didn’t have to do that,” said Fremgen.

When Jefferson County Register in Probate Thomas LaFleur returned from a week-long vacation on June 16, he had several messages from people who could not make it to the court to file documents.

“There were a couple of people who were down to their last day to file estate claims who said they couldn’t make it to the courthouse in time,” said LaFleur. “I don’t think they expected to not be able to just drive over and drop it off at the courthouse.”

LaFleur did not know if any claims were still outstanding, but said no objections have been filed for those, which may have been filed late.

“It certainly could still happen,” said LaFleur. “For the most part, we’re back to business as usual.”