Luedtke v. Luedtke

Gordon and Beilfuss, JJ.

(concurring). We fully agree with the majority’s opinion that the affidavit of prejudice was properly rejected by the trial judge. We add this comment only to reflect our belief that the scope of the opinion need not be limited to divorce proceedings. In any kind of case, when a party seeks to effect a change in a judgment, he should not be permitted to file a belated affidavit of prejudice and thereby win a hearing before a second judge.

The concept of Sang v. Sang (1942), 240 Wis. 288, 296, 3 N. W. (2d) 340, is, in our opinion, equally applicable to actions other than divorce proceedings. If a litigant wants to alter a divorce judgment he should go back to the court which entered the judgment; he is not free to have the ruling of one judge reviewed by another judge without taking an appeal. There is no reason why this rule should be confined to divorce actions. The evil of permitting a litigant in the aftermath of a judgment to oust the judge who made the original ruling is just as wrong in a contract case or a tort case as it is in a divorce case.