“Deposit” Means Deposit: Wis. Stat. § 165.10 Does Not Dictate Where Settlement Funds Are Credited Within the General Fund

Case: Wisconsin State Legislature v. Josh Kaul (2026 WI 28)  |  Court: Supreme Court of Wisconsin  |  Date: July 10, 2026

I. Introduction

This case concerns the fiscal mechanics and separation-of-powers implications of how the Wisconsin Attorney General handles civil settlement money received on behalf of the State. For years, attorneys general negotiated settlements that included “uncommitted” funds—money not earmarked by the settlement for restitution, fees, or another specified purpose. Historically, those uncommitted funds were placed in the state treasury’s general fund and then routed (credited) to a Department of Justice (DOJ) program-revenue appropriation, most notably WIS. STAT. § 20.455(3)(g), described as “proceeds from services.”

The Wisconsin State Legislature (and an individual plaintiff, Adam Jarchow) sued Attorney General Josh Kaul (and the Secretary of Administration) seeking declarations and coercive relief that would require uncommitted settlement funds to be placed not merely in the general fund, but specifically into the general purpose revenues (GPR) portion of that general fund— thereby making the money broadly available for legislative appropriation rather than agency-controlled program spending.

The case presented a core interpretive question about WIS. STAT. § 165.10 (“The attorney general shall deposit all settlement funds into the general fund.”): does that command regulate only the fund into which money must be deposited, or also the accounting destination (crediting) within the general fund?

After granting review, the Supreme Court also raised sua sponte a second issue: whether settlement proceeds can qualify as “proceeds from services” under WIS. STAT. § 20.455(3)(g). The Court ultimately did not resolve that second issue.

II. Summary of the Opinion

• Holding on § 165.10: The Court (Dallet, J.) held that WIS. STAT. § 165.10 imposes a single requirement—settlement funds must be deposited into the general fund. The statute says nothing about where the money must be credited within the general fund. Therefore, the Attorney General complies with § 165.10 even if, after depositing, he credits those funds to one or more program appropriations.
• Disposition: The Court reversed the court of appeals “in relevant part” (the portion that required crediting to GPR).
• Added issue on § 20.455(3)(g): The Court dismissed as improvidently granted the question whether DOJ litigation services yield “proceeds from services” under WIS. STAT. § 20.455(3)(g), reasoning no lower court decision existed to affirm or reverse on that question and the Court was too divided to issue a majority mandate.

III. Analysis

A. The New Precedent: “Deposit” and “Credit” Are Distinct Treasury Actions

The majority’s most concrete doctrinal contribution is its operational distinction between “deposit” and “credit” in Wisconsin’s budget statutes. Using the structure of Chapter 20 and examples where the Legislature uses both verbs in the same sentence, the Court holds:

• “Deposit” means placing money into a treasury fund (general fund or a segregated fund).
• “Credit” means directing money already deposited in the general fund to a particular category within that fund (e.g., GPR or a program-revenue appropriation).

From that distinction the Court derives the key interpretive rule: where a statute (here, § 165.10) speaks only to depositing, courts should not infer restrictions on crediting unless the text says so.

B. Precedents Cited

1. Sojenhomer v. Village of Egg Harbor, 2024 WI 25

Sojenhomer supplies the interpretive tool that drives the majority’s “deposit vs. credit” analysis. The Court quotes Sojenhomer for the proposition that when the Legislature uses two different terms side-by-side, it “can signify that each term has a separate, non-overlapping meaning.” The majority then points to numerous statutes that say money must be “deposited in the general fund and credited to” a specified appropriation, concluding that the Legislature knows how to command both steps when it wants to. Because § 165.10 commands only “deposit,” it cannot be rewritten to command “credit to GPR.”

2. Estate of Lorbiecki v. Pabst Brewing Co., 2026 WI 12

This case is cited for the standard of review: summary judgment is reviewed de novo. Its practical effect here is to place statutory interpretation squarely before the Supreme Court without deference to the circuit court or court of appeals on the meaning of § 165.10.

3. Serv. Emps. Int'l Union Healthcare Wis. v. WERC, 2025 WI 29

Cited for the proposition that statutory interpretation is a question of law reviewed de novo. It reinforces that the dispute is fundamentally textual and structural: what does the enacted language require, not what fiscal policy might counsel.

4. Pepsi-Cola Metro. Bottling Co., Inc. v. Emps. Ins. Co., 2023 WI 42 (per curiam)

The majority invokes Pepsi-Cola for the general rule that when the Court cannot reach a majority mandate, it typically affirms the decision under review. Here, the majority distinguishes that norm because there was “no decision to affirm” on the added § 20.455(3)(g) question: neither the circuit court nor the court of appeals had decided it. That reasoning becomes the foundation for the Court’s unusual remedy—dismissing an issue as improvidently granted rather than resolving it.

5. Wis. State Legis. v. Kaul, 2025 WI App 2

The majority relies on the court of appeals decision mainly as the judgment under review and as context for what issues were (and were not) decided below. It specifically reverses the court of appeals’ conclusion that § 165.10, read with other statutes, required settlement funds to be credited to GPR. It also notes that the court of appeals did not decide the “proceeds from services” question, which mattered to the Supreme Court’s “no decision to affirm” logic.

6. Authorities cited in separate writings (and their function)

Justice Hagedorn cites Pepsi-Cola Metro. Bottling Co., Inc. v. Emps. Ins. Co. by implication through the “divided court” practice and then contrasts it with older examples where a divided court explained the split: State v. Hambly, Cont'l Cas. Co. v. Indus. Comm'n, and State v. Brookshaw. Those citations support his critique that the Court should have resolved (or at least transparently addressed) the § 20.455(3)(g) meaning rather than dismissing the issue.

Justice Rebecca Grassl Bradley’s dissent (including a reproduced alternative opinion) cites numerous interpretive cases (e.g., State ex rel. Kalal v. Cir. Ct. for Dane Cnty., Benson v. City of Madison, Townsend v. ChartSwap, LLC) and canon-of-construction sources (including Scalia & Garner) chiefly to argue that: (i) § 20.906(1) supplies a mandatory default crediting rule to GPR, and (ii) § 20.455(3)(g) does not “specifically provide” an exception for settlement money. While those authorities are not adopted by the majority, they frame the interpretive fault line the decision leaves in place: whether the controlling question is confined to § 165.10’s text (majority) or necessarily incorporates § 20.906(1)’s crediting command (dissent).

C. Legal Reasoning

1. Textual focus on § 165.10’s single directive

The majority treats § 165.10 as a narrow, complete command: “The attorney general shall deposit all settlement funds into the general fund.” From that text it extracts:

• Object: “all settlement funds.”
• Actor: “The attorney general.”
• Action required: “shall deposit.”
• Destination required: “into the general fund.”

The majority’s key move is negative inference: because the statute is silent on crediting, courts may not add a crediting limitation “that it does not contain or reasonably imply.” The majority reinforces that inference with the structural observation that the “general fund” is an umbrella that includes both general purpose revenues and program revenues; crediting to a program appropriation does not move money out of the general fund.

2. Rejection of cross-statute “importation” to rewrite § 165.10

The Legislature’s position (and the court of appeals’ reasoning) attempted to reach GPR by combining § 165.10 with other statutes, including the default crediting rule in WIS. STAT. § 20.906(1). The majority does not deny those other statutes may impose crediting constraints; it simply holds that whether the Attorney General violates those other provisions “tells us nothing about whether the attorney general is violating § 165.10.”

In effect, the majority separates “deposit-compliance litigation” from “crediting-compliance litigation.” It decides the former and leaves the latter unresolved.

3. The improvidently granted dismissal: mandate mechanics over merits

On the added § 20.455(3)(g) issue, the majority relies on an institutional constraint: the Court cannot produce a majority mandate, and—unlike the typical divided-court scenario— there is no lower-court ruling on that question to affirm. Because the complaint sought declaratory relief keyed to § 165.10 (as the circuit court understood it) and because neither lower court reached the “proceeds from services” meaning, the majority concludes the Supreme Court should not decide it in this posture and dismisses it as improvidently granted.

Justice Hagedorn’s partial dissent squarely disputes the premise: he argues the § 20.455(3)(g) question was central to the parties’ dispute and was, in fact, opined on in the court of appeals (majority and dissent) even if not dispositively resolved; he also contends a majority of the Court agreed on the interpretive bottom line but failed to formalize it.

D. Impact

1. Immediate fiscal-administration consequence

The direct effect is to validate (for § 165.10 purposes) the Attorney General’s practice of depositing settlement funds into the general fund even when the funds are later credited to a program appropriation within the general fund. The court of appeals’ rule—requiring crediting to GPR as part of “deposit”—is rejected.

2. Litigation roadmap: future suits will target crediting statutes directly

By confining the holding to “deposit,” the decision invites (and practically requires) any future challenge to be pleaded and adjudicated as a dispute over the crediting regime— principally WIS. STAT. § 20.906(1) (default crediting to GPR) and the scope of specific program appropriations like § 20.455(3)(g). The Supreme Court’s refusal to decide whether settlements are “proceeds from services” ensures the principal operational question remains open.

3. Separation-of-powers and budgeting implications

The majority’s approach tends to narrow the judicial role to enforcing the precise fiscal verbs the Legislature chose (“deposit” vs “credit”), leaving broader interbranch control fights to clearer legislative drafting or more directly framed litigation. The dissent’s approach—treating § 20.906(1)’s default crediting rule as central—would have placed more settlement money under GPR unless a statute “otherwise specifically provided by law.” Because the majority does not reach that synthesis, the budgetary boundary between legislative control (GPR) and agency control (program revenue appropriations) remains contestable in settlement contexts.

IV. Complex Concepts Simplified

1. “General fund” vs. “segregated funds”

Think of the state treasury as a set of buckets. The general fund is the main bucket for money not assigned by statute to a special-purpose bucket. Segregated funds are special-purpose buckets that statutes create for particular revenue streams and uses.

2. “Deposit” vs. “credit”

Deposit answers: “Which bucket does the money go into?”
Credit answers: “Once in the general fund bucket, which labeled compartment/account does it belong to?”

3. General purpose revenues (GPR) vs. program revenues

Within the general fund, GPR is the broadly available pool the Legislature can appropriate through the budget process. Program revenues are still in the general fund, but are earmarked by law to specified appropriations for specified agencies/programs.

4. “Dismissed as improvidently granted”

When an appellate court says an issue (or a case) was “improvidently granted,” it means the court now believes it should not have agreed to decide it in that procedural posture— often because the record, preservation, or lower-court rulings are inadequate, or because the court cannot reach a controlling majority.

V. Conclusion

Wisconsin State Legislature v. Josh Kaul establishes a clear interpretive rule for Wisconsin fiscal statutes: a command to “deposit” money into the general fund does not, without more, command where that money must be “credited” within the general fund. On that basis, the Supreme Court reversed the court of appeals’ attempt to treat “deposit” as implicitly requiring crediting to GPR.

At the same time, the decision leaves the most practically significant question unresolved: whether uncommitted civil settlement proceeds can lawfully be credited to DOJ’s § 20.455(3)(g) appropriation as “proceeds from services.” The Court’s dismissal of that added issue preserves uncertainty for both branches and signals that the next definitive ruling will likely require (i) pleadings and judgments squarely addressing the crediting statutes and (ii) a majority mandate on the meaning of “proceeds from services” and the operation of § 20.906(1).