Wisconsin Dairy Alliance, Inc. v. Kaul

A Wisconsin Circuit Court denied the Wisconsin Attorney General and Department of Justice’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit challenging an agreement with New York University regarding the employment of a legal fellow as a Special Assistant Attorney General. The court determined that the plaintiffs—an organization representing dairy farms, a milk marketing cooperative, and an individual resident and taxpayer—had standing and stated a claim upon which relief could be granted. The court’s decision noted that the plaintiffs appeared to be opposed to “both how the fellow was acquired and what she will do in her role” and that the fellow’s purposes included “enforc[ing] and prosecut[ing] environmental issues affecting Plaintiff’s members.” The court concluded that the plaintiffs had a legally protected interest to contest “what they believe is an illegal expenditure of taxpayer funds.”

A complaint filed in Wisconsin Circuit Court sought to terminate the Wisconsin Department of Justice’s (DOJ’s) agreement with New York University (NYU) that the plaintiffs alleged authorized a Legal Fellow employed by the NYU School of Law State Energy and Environmental Impact Center to work as a Wisconsin Special Assistant Attorney General (SAAG). The plaintiffs alleged that the SAAG was “paid exclusively by the Center and its special interest backers” and that the agreement required DOJ to use the SAAG’s services to further the Center’s goals of defending, enforcing, and promoting “strong laws and policies in the areas of climate, environmental justice, environmental protection, and clean energy.” The plaintiffs—an alliance of dairy farms, a milk marketing cooperative, and a Wisconsin resident who previously was a DOJ attorney and official—asserted that the agreement with NYU was ultra vires, unlawful, and unconstitutional.