Motor Vehicles – Implements of husbandry

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Motor Vehicles – Implements of husbandry

A manure spreader is not an implement of husbandry under sec. 340.01(24).

“Marshland cites Okray Produce, 132 Wis. 2d 145, and Wisconsin Fertilizer Association v. Karns, 52 Wis. 2d 309, 190 N.W.2d 513 (1971), for the proposition that WIS. STAT. § 340.01(24) requires a principal use determination in every case. Those cases are not on point, though, because they were decided before the legislature amended § 340.01(24) to add paragraph (b). See 1989 Wis. Act 105, § 24. The version of the statute interpreted in Okray Produce and Karns only included paragraph (a), which states that the term ‘implement of husbandry’ means ‘a vehicle … used principally off the highway.’ WIS. STAT. § 340.01(24)(a). Under that version of the statute, a principal use determination was required in every case. By enacting paragraph (b), though, the legislature provided an exception to the definition in paragraph (a). If paragraph (b) applies, then the vehicle in question is not an implement of husbandry, and the elements of paragraph (a) are irrelevant. Here, Marshland’s manure spreader meets all of the criteria in paragraph (b). As a result, the spreader is not an implement of husbandry, and it is unnecessary to consider the principal use requirement found in paragraph (a).”

Affirmed.

Recommended for publication in the official reports.

2012AP2367 – 2012AP2369 State v. Marshland Acres, Inc.

Dist. III, Pepin County, Duvall, J., Cane, J.

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