Bryant H. Klos

Klos, Flynn & Papenfuss – Chartered, Shareholder, 1984 – 2007

• Recovered a substantial structured settlement for a 12-year-old boy who lost his thumb on the PTO of the family tractor while helping to do barn chores against a tractor repair shop for prior negligent repair.
• Recovered monies for a young teenage driver, who suffered severe facial scarring, when alone in a car and driving on a rural road for the first time flew through a “T” intersection and a field and landed in a tree filled ravine, from the local municipality on the grounds the intersection was missing a previously placed stop sign due to a wind storm, and the municipality was negligent in not timely replacing the sign.
• In defending an auto insurer and their driver against a claimed $100,000 soft tissue neck injury and headache claim, where at trial the plaintiff called both the treating doctor and chiropractor live and both of whom testified the plaintiff sustained a permanent soft tissue neck injury, which was causing headaches, convinced the jury by cross-examination of the experts using the existing medical chart and without an independent medical exam that the jury should only award medical expenses incurred during the first month of treatment resulting in a $1,500 verdict.
• Convinced an extremely experienced trial judge by calling numerous lay witnesses about their detailed day-to-day experience with the aunt that his client, a middle-aged strong-willed businessman, had not exercised undue influence over his aunt, whose competency was also in question, when he took her to an attorney who amended his aunt’s trust to distribute all of her assets at death to him and eliminated his brother and sister ‘s 1/3 share each, where the siblings called the aunt’s treating doctor who testified he thought the aunt’s competency was very questionable and that his dealings with the client were such that he thought the client was the most pushy and overbearing person he ever had to deal with.
• Convinced a trial judge, based on historical usage, to open as a Township Road a portion of pavement the defendant claimed as a private drive, as an extension of an exiting Town Road for the benefit of an adjoining landowner, despite the Township taking no position about whether it considered this area a Town Road, and convinced the Court of Appeals to extend the Township Road even further so as to fully connect the client’s property to the Town Road as matter of law.
• In opposing a motion for summary judgment by the owner of a small town bank to void a contract he had signed to sell his stock to the client on grounds the contract was void for vagueness and on the grounds the client, a lawyer, had improperly dealt with the unrepresented banker in obtaining the banker’s signature on the contract, skillfully used the transcript of a four hour deposition of the banker to debunk any claimed impropriety on behalf of the lawyer and any claim the banker did not understand what he was signing to obtain a judgment from the trial judge forcing the banker to convey the contracted for stock.

Wyss v. Albee, 515 N.W.2d 517 (Wis.App. 1994)

State Bank of La Crosse v. Elsen, 383 N.W.2d 916 (Wis.App. 1986)

Mills v. Wisconsin Mutual, 427 N.W.2d 397 (Wis.App. 1988)

Johnson v. City of Onalaska, 451 N.W.2d 466 (Wis.App. 1989)

Arlt v. American Family, 530 N.W.2d 21 (Wis.App. 1995)

Markos v. Schaller, 668 N.W.2d 755 (Wis.App. 2003)

La Crosse County Bar Association, 2000–2001, President

Psi Upsilon Rho