Each county in this state is a body corporate, authorized to sue and be sued, to acquire and hold, lease or rent real and personal estate for public uses or purposes, including lands acquired under ch. 75, to sell, lease and convey the same, including the authority to enter into leases or contracts with the state for a period of years for the uses and purposes specified in s. 23.09 (2) (d), to make such contracts and to do such other acts as are necessary and proper to the exercise of the powers and privileges granted and the performance of the legal duties charged upon it.
Wis. Stat. § 59.01
Body corporate; status
Applied in 3 court decisions — leading case 216 Wis. 2d 560 - Barland v. Eau Claire County (1998)
Most recently applied in 378 Wis. 2d 289 - Town of Grant v. Portage County (September 2017)
1987 a. 378; 1995 a. 201.
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: Wisconsin State Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain Wisconsin statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.