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Wis. Stat. § 902.01

Judicial notice of adjudicative facts

Applied in 37 court decisions — leading case State v. Harvey (2002)

Most recently applied in Billie Johnson v. Wisconsin Elections Commission (April 2022)

Sup

How often courts cite this section

200020102020202250
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) SCOPE. This section governs only judicial notice of adjudicative facts.

(2) KINDS OF FACTS. A judicially noticed fact must be one not subject to reasonable dispute in that it is any of the following:

(a) A fact generally known within the territorial jurisdiction of the trial court.

(b) A fact capable of accurate and ready determination by resort to sources whose accuracy cannot reasonably be questioned.

(3) WHEN DISCRETIONARY. A judge or court may take judicial notice, whether requested or not.

(4) WHEN MANDATORY. A judge or court shall take judicial notice if requested by a party and supplied with the necessary information.

(5) OPPORTUNITY TO BE HEARD. A party is entitled upon timely request to an opportunity to be heard as to the propriety of taking judicial notice and the tenor of the matter noticed. In the absence of prior notification, the request may be made after judicial notice has been taken.

(6) TIME OF TAKING NOTICE. Judicial notice may be taken at any stage of the proceeding.

(7) INSTRUCTING JURY. The judge shall instruct the jury to accept as established any facts judicially noticed.

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