Wisconsin Supreme Court Decision on Koble v. Marquardt Is a Victory for Residents, Owners, Managers, Communities, and Neighborhoods

By Rick Van Der Leest, President — Apartment Association of Northeast Wisconsin | Fox Valley Apartment Association

June 5, 2026

Note: What follows is a reader’s digest summary of the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s decision in Koble Investments v. Marquardt, issued today, June 5, 2026. It should not be construed as legal advice. If you are involved in any matter related to this case or the issues it raises, please seek qualified legal counsel.

Before we get into what the Court actually decided, I want to address something that I suspect will be misrepresented widely in the hours and days ahead.

This decision will be framed in some corners of the media as a “win for landlords.” That framing is not just incomplete — it is actively harmful, and it reflects one of the central challenges we face in trying to build a rental housing ecosystem that genuinely works for everyone. The real headline here is this: the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s decision in Koble v. Marquardt is a victory for residents, owners, managers, communities, and neighborhoods. Full stop.

Here is why that framing matters. The unintended consequences and collateral damage that have accumulated across Wisconsin’s rental housing market since the Court of Appeals issued its now-reversed decision two years ago represent a story that has largely gone untold. The negative impact on affordable housing supply — and on the rents that residents pay — can be directly traced to this case and to the well over 80 copycat lawsuits it spawned across the state. Anyone who has ever worked with attorneys on complex litigation understands that legal defense is extraordinarily expensive. Those costs — running into the millions of dollars across all the cases filed — do not disappear. In a business where rent is the primary and often only source of income, those costs get recovered through rent increases. As I have said in our “State of the Industry” presentations: we are not a manufacturing company that can add a new production line, find efficiencies, and reduce costs. Our product is housing. Our revenue is rent. When we absorb massive, unanticipated legal exposure, residents ultimately absorb it too.

That is the story that deserves to be told alongside today’s decision. And that is why I refuse to let this be framed as a landlord victory and nothing more.

What the Court Actually Decided

The Wisconsin Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals in a strong, clean ruling — and the decision was robust across the issues that mattered most to our industry.

On the Wisconsin Consumer Act: The Court ruled squarely — effectively 6-1 on the merits — that the Wisconsin Consumer Act (WCA) does not apply to residential leases under which rent is payable monthly. The core legal reasoning is straightforward: rent is a contemporaneous exchange. One month’s payment buys one month’s occupancy. There is no “agreement to defer payment” as the WCA requires. The Court leaned directly on the argument our coalition made in our amicus brief — that Wisconsin law already prevents rent acceleration and limits prepaid rent, which is structurally incompatible with the installment-debt theory the Court of Appeals had accepted. The Court also noted that in the fifty-plus years since the WCA was enacted, no court had ever applied it to a residential lease. That half-century of consistent practice is not an accident. It is the law working as it was designed to work.

On damages and causation: Even setting aside the WCA question, the Court held that tenant Elicia Marquardt suffered no recoverable pecuniary loss — because she received housing in exchange for her rent payments. A voided lease creates a periodic tenancy by operation of Wisconsin law; the tenant still owes rent for the occupancy she received. The notion that a landlord could owe every dollar of rent back — with no credit for the housing actually provided — based on a technical lease deficiency that caused the tenant no actual harm, has been soundly and thoroughly rejected.

On the lease-void question: The Court chose not to formally resolve whether Koble’s specific lease was void under § 704.44(10). It did not need to — because the causation ruling makes that question practically moot. Even if a lease were voided, no recoverable damages exist under the framework the Court has now established. The economic engine driving the 80-plus copycat cases has been shut off.

On Attorney Miller: Attorney Miller — who withdrew from representing his client and then pursued this appeal on his own behalf to recover attorney fees — loses on every count. No WCA claim, no damages, no fees. Justice Crawford’s separate concurrence would have gone further and dismissed the entire appeal on standing grounds, noting that Marquardt herself never appealed, had stopped communicating with her attorney, and had effectively walked away from the case after the eviction action was dismissed. If you attended or reviewed the September 9, 2025 oral arguments, Justice Crawford’s line of questioning to Attorney Miller made this conclusion look likely from the opening moments.

Justice Bradley’s Concurrence — What It Means and What to Keep in Mind

Justice Bradley, joined by Justice Ziegler, wrote separately to argue that the majority did not go far enough. In their view, the entire Wisconsin Consumer Act should have been declared inapplicable to residential leases — not just the single provision at the center of this case. Their reasoning: a residential tenant does not “acquire” real property in the sense the WCA’s definition of “customer” requires. Tenants get a right of possession, not ownership. Therefore, tenants are not “customers” under the WCA, and the WCA simply does not apply.

This is exactly the argument our coalition’s amicus brief made. Having two justices on record for the broader proposition is meaningful — and it signals where the Court might land if this question resurfaces in future litigation.

I do want to offer one note of context, however: Justices Bradley and Ziegler are not seeking re-election. The alignment that produced this concurrence may not be replicated on a future Court. That does not diminish what they wrote, or its persuasive force — but it is worth keeping in mind when assessing how much weight to place on that broader signal going forward.

What This Means Practically

The immediate practical impact is significant. The core legal theory driving the wave of litigation against Wisconsin housing providers — that landlords are “debt collectors” subject to WCA double-damages penalties for enforcing residential leases — is dead. The damages-without-causation theory is dead. The fee-shifting strategy that made these cases financially attractive to plaintiff’s attorneys is dead. The group of attorneys who pursued this class-action windfall theory will, in all likelihood, move on to their next target.

The § 704.44(10) lease-void question technically remains open, but it has been defanged. Without a viable damages theory, the economic incentive to litigate it is gone.

There is also a legislative angle worth watching. Governor Evers vetoed Assembly Bill 202 in March 2026 — a carefully crafted bill that our coalition helped draft and actively championed, and that would have, among other things, addressed the void-vs-voidable question the Court left open today. His stated rationale was to wait for the Supreme Court’s decision. That rationale is now exhausted. The Court has spoken. If the void-vs-voidable question warrants a statutory fix — and there is a reasonable argument that it does — the path back to the Legislature is open, and the Governor no longer has a principled basis for delay.

A Final Word

AANW FVAA — have been engaged in this fight since the Court of Appeals issued its decision two years ago. We tracked and documented every Koble-like case filed across the state. We helped draft and advocate for AB 202. We contributed to the coalition amicus brief filed before the Supreme Court. We testified, we communicated, and we pushed — not just because this affected housing providers, but because we understood from the beginning that what happens to housing providers ultimately happens to the residents who depend on the housing they provide.

Today’s decision is good news. Not just for owners and managers. For the residents who benefit from a stable, financially viable housing market. For the communities that depend on that supply. And for the neighborhoods where quality rental housing makes a real difference in people’s lives. A sustainable rental housing marketplace requires that all stakeholders succeed — and today, the Court helped make that more possible.

This outcome belongs to everyone who stayed engaged — every member who followed along, every provider who shared their story, and every organization that stood with our coalition. The work is not finished, but today the legal ground and financial footings beneath Wisconsin’s rental housing marketplace are more stable than they were yesterday.