Court sides with teen who urinated at post office
Associated Press
June 11, 2002 11:30:00

WAUSAU, Wis. - A Trempealeau County judge erred when he ruled that a 14-year-old boy was delinquent for criminal damage to property by urinating on the floor of a post office, a state appeals court ruled Tuesday.

Urination on a hard floor is not damage because it requires only cleaning, thus prosecutors did not present enough evidence to justify the charge, the 3rd District Court of Appeals ruled in overturning the conviction.

"There was no evidence in this case that any post office property was disfigured, injured, spoiled or marred by the urine," Judge Michael Hoover wrote. "Damage connotes more than a superficial, transient alteration."

According to court records, Connie Solfest, an employee of the Osseo Post Office, observed a yellow puddle on the lobby floor on March 3, 2001, and the teenager was the only person in the lobby.

The boy, identified in court records only by his first name and the initial of his last name, denied he urinated in the lobby.

Solfest said she "cleaned up the mess," using a $50 cleaning kit and about 45 minutes of her time.

Trempealeau County Circuit Judge John Damon ruled the boy was delinquent for criminal damage to property. The judge placed the boy on one year of supervision, ordered him to write an apology to the post office and required him to pay $100 in restitution.

In arguing for the conviction to be overturned, the boy's attorney, public defender Eileen Hirsch, said urinating on public property was an "indecent act" but ruling that it damaged property would open the door for charging many people.

"If a farmer intentionally walks into a post office with manure on his boots, knowing it will leave smelly, dirty residue on the floor, does that farmer violate the criminal damage law?" she wrote.