Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

Wis. Stat. § 785.04

Sanctions authorized

Applied in 17 court decisions — leading case United States v. Garrett (2008)

Most recently applied in In re Victor Marshall (II) (March 2023)

1979 c. 257; 1993 a. 78

How often courts cite this section

1996200020102020202330
citing decisions per year

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.

(1) REMEDIAL SANCTION. A court may impose one or more of the following remedial sanctions:

(a) Payment of a sum of money sufficient to compensate a party for a loss or injury suffered by the party as the result of a contempt of court.

(b) Imprisonment if the contempt of court is of a type included in s. 785.01 (1) (b), (bm), (c) or (d). The imprisonment may extend only so long as the person is committing the contempt of court or 6 months, whichever is the shorter period.

(c) A forfeiture not to exceed $2,000 for each day the contempt of court continues.

(d) An order designed to ensure compliance with a prior order of the court.

(e) A sanction other than the sanctions specified in pars.

(a) to (d) if it expressly finds that those sanctions would be ineffectual to terminate a continuing contempt of court.

(2) PUNITIVE SANCTION.

(a) Nonsummary procedure. A court, after a finding of contempt of court in a nonsummary procedure under s. 785.03 (1) (b), may impose for each separate contempt of court a fine of not more than $5,000 or imprisonment in the county jail for not more than one year or both.

(b) Summary procedure. A court, after a finding of contempt of court in a summary procedure under s. 785.03 (2), may impose for each separate contempt of court a fine of not more than $500 or imprisonment in the county jail for not more than 30 days or both.

(3) PAST CONDUCT. A punitive sanction may be imposed for past conduct which was a contempt of court even though similar present conduct is a continuing contempt of court.

Official source: Wisconsin State Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain Wisconsin statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.