Daily Record (Kansas City, MO) articles from February 2008

Daily Record (Kansas City, MO) archives from February 2008

Voting to begin on Missouri Bar's new board members.
February 1, 2008... Byline: The (Kansas City) Daily Record Starting today, lawyers across the state will have a chance to select three new members for the Missouri Bar's Board of Governors. Attorneys should have received electronic ballots allowing them to...

Missouri Supreme Court considers sex offender distance limit.
February 1, 2008... Byline: Donna Walter The Missouri Supreme Court heard a challenge Thursday to a recent state law prohibiting sex offenders from living near schools or day care centers. The original version of the School Residency Law, enacted in 2004,...

Federal judge upholds west St. Louis County municipality's anti-illegal workers ordinance.
February 1, 2008... Byline: Donna Walter A federal judge upheld a Valley Park ordinance that threatens to withhold or revoke the business licenses of people who hire illegal immigrants. U.S. District Judge E. Richard Webber said Tuesday in a 57-page opinion...

Federal organic milk mislabeling suit underway -- but where?
February 1, 2008... Byline: Liane M. Kufchock and Emily Heller, Bloomberg News Series of 18 suits, lead by Missouri lawyers, may be consolidated Lawyers for consumers suing Aurora Dairy Corp. for allegedly selling milk mislabeled as organic asked a panel...

Commentary: Halftime malfunction still with us as XLII approaches.
February 1, 2008... Byline: Jack L.B. Gohn Believe it or not, with the approach of this year's Festivus Maximus, we are already about to celebrate the fourth anniversary of The Wardrobe Malfunction. Only a small percentage of the population, even of those who...

Law enforcement lauds Missouri DNA law, but defense lawyers point out problems.
February 4, 2008... Byline: Kelly Wiese A state law requiring all felons to provide DNA samples has been a godsend for solving old cases, prosecutors and supporters say. But many defense lawyers say it's an encroachment of government and that people are too...

Jackson County Legal Briefs: February 4, 2008.
February 4, 2008... Byline: Charles Emerick In what might be the first case tried under a statute protecting state employees who report mismanagement, a whistle-blowing corrections officer won $60,000 for his claim that his superiors retaliated against him....

Commentary: Fear and loathing in Warrensburg.
February 4, 2008... Byline: Craig Napier My 300-pound Samoan attorney and I did not franticly drive around Kansas City last Monday morning to buy all the drugs we could find before hitting the road, so the only suitcase full of pacification we brought was my...

Kansas City attorney John C. Dods reflects on last half century of legal practice.
February 5, 2008... Byline: Aaron Bailey When John C. Dods III joined Shook, Hardy & Bacon in 1958, the firm had 15 attorneys, he was paid $300 a month and class action suits didn't exist. But while the legal landscape and the law firm have changed over the...

Investors seek class action against St. Louis-based Panera.
February 5, 2008... Byline: Donna Walter Richmond Heights-based Panera Bread Co., owner and franchisor of more than 1,100 Panera Bread and St. Louis Bread Co. bakery-cafes in the United States, faces allegations in federal court of misleading investors about...

BP asks judge to accept $50 million criminal fine.
February 5, 2008... Byline: Laurel Brubaker Calkins and Margaret Cronin Fisk BP asked a U.S. judge to accept a $50 million fine to resolve criminal charges linked to 15 deaths in a 2005 explosion at its Texas refinery while victims demanded that the fine...

Commentary: Failure can build character and save your life.
February 5, 2008... Byline: Christine Ann Hughes I have a friend who told me a true story about her husband. She said that he had to take an important exam in regards to his professional career. His parents and other friends and family prayed he would pass....

Judge in Missouri offers tweaks to court plan; critics push for more.
February 6, 2008... Byline: Kelly Wiese Just minutes after a hearing where critics bashed Missouri's plan for selecting judges, Chief Justice Laura Denvir Stith directly responded to efforts to undo it, and offered an olive branch to opponents. The annual...

Surgeon wins new hearing in Missouri Supreme Court over loss of clinical privileges.
February 6, 2008... Byline: Donna Walter Doctors have the right to sue to compel private hospitals to follow their own bylaws in disciplinary matters, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled. The decision is a departure from the court's own 1965 decision in Cowan v....

U.S. Court of Appeals, 8th Circuit rules judge was wrong to suspend woman's sentence.
February 6, 2008... Byline: Charles Emerick A U.S. District judge was wrong in suspending a woman's two-year prison sentence, a federal appellate court ruled. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit ruled again on Tuesday that federal courts are not...

Case in 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals called 'huge win' for car creditors.
February 6, 2008... Byline: Donna Walter Shedding debt in bankruptcy court just got a little harder. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday said bankruptcy law does not eliminate the debt on a vehicle that's been repossessed if the debtor bought it...

A giant LEAP forward in Kansas City for children in poverty.
February 6, 2008... Byline: Scott Lauck K.C. bar associations' annual drive for charity yields $85,000 for Operation Breakthrough Leap year comes only every four years, but every February marks a LEAP day. A day, that is, when Lawyers Encouraging Academic...

Companies charged in Kansas City in pet food recall.
February 7, 2008... Byline: Charles Emerick Two Chinese businesses, a U.S. company and their top executives face federal charges in Kansas City for their roles in putting tainted pet food on store shelves last year. U.S. Attorney John Wood announced on...

Missouri to net $16M in settlement with Merck.
February 8, 2008... Byline: Donna Walter Merck & Co. agreed Thursday to pay about $650 million, including $16 million to Missouri, to settle multiple federal and state claims of Medicaid fraud. The drug maker is accused of underpaying mandatory rebates to...

Kansas City to choose new municipal judge by April.
February 8, 2008... Byline: Charles Emerick All that remains between the Kansas City Municipal Court and its first judge in more than three years is an appointment by the city council. The council has until early April to select from the panel that includes...

Settlement reached before trial in St. Louis Circuit Court in death from birth control.
February 8, 2008... Byline: Kelly Wiese A woman who sued a drug maker after her teenage granddaughter died while using a birth control patch has reached a settlement, just before the trial was set to begin. Details of the settlement were confidential, court...

Kansas City Lawyers in the news: February 8, 2008.
February 8, 2008... Byline: The (Kansas City) Daily Record Cajanding joins Lathrop & Gage as partner Sheryl Anne Cajanding has joined Lathrop & Gage as a staff attorney in the real estate law group. Cajanding will practice in the firm's Overland Park...

BP faces investigation over Texas worker's death.
February 8, 2008... Byline: Tina Seeley and Laurel Brubaker Calkins BP will be subject to a full investigation by the U.S. Chemical Safety Board into the death of a worker this month at the company's Texas City, Texas, refinery. Investigators from the Chemical...

Kirkwood shooter Thornton spent years fighting losing battles in court.
February 11, 2008... Byline: Will Connaghan Charles L. "Cookie" Thornton, who killed five Kirkwood officials last Thursday, spent years battling city officials in court. Acting mostly as his own attorney, Thornton appeared in civil or criminal cases as a...

Missouri public defenders won't refuse cases until summer.
February 11, 2008... Byline: Kelly Wiese Despite more than a year of saying it's in crisis mode, the state public defender system is proceeding cautiously with its plan to begin refusing new cases in overworked offices. The Public Defender Commission voted in...

Kansas City Courthouse Roundup: February 11, 2008.
February 11, 2008... Byline: Charles Emerick A forklift manufacturer won a significant defense verdict on claims that its trucks were dangerously flawed. A Jackson County jury on Friday rejected a man's claim that the design of a Crown Equipment Corp. forklift...

'Uncommon' Judge Scott O. Wright recounts life on bench in memoirs.
February 12, 2008... Byline: Aaron Bailey Judge Scott O. Wright is well aware that his rulings through the years have been both lauded and loathed, depending on one's political vantage point. "Everything I've done hasn't been perfect -- that's for damn sure,"...

Kansas City Legal Briefs: February 12, 2008.
February 12, 2008... Byline: Betsy Lee A Platte County judge recently ordered Wal-Mart to start digging through five years of accidents reports. David Stout, the attorney representing Theresa Steward in the case of Steward v. Walmart Stores East, said Judge...

Legal Aid groups sue over misuse of name.
February 13, 2008... Byline: Aaron Bailey Two legal nonprofit groups claim that groups based in Colorado and Texas are improperly using variations of the name Legal Aid in a nationwide scheme to bilk people out of money. A federal lawsuit filed last week in...

Kansas City Southern seeks arbitration in Louisiana tiff.
February 13, 2008... Byline: Charles Emerick Kansas City Southern Railway Co. is turning to a federal judge to help resolve a dispute with a Louisiana-based freight service. In a lawsuit filed Friday in Louisiana, Kansas City Southern said it wants an...

Truman's courthouse in Jackson County needs pricey repairs.
February 13, 2008... Byline: Charles Emerick The courthouse where Harry Truman presided as an administrative judge decades ago could be lost if it doesn't receive millions of dollars in renovations, Jackson County officials say. A number of structural...

Missouri patient sues over publication of nude photos.
February 13, 2008... Byline: Donna Walter A plastic surgery patient expected her medical files to remain confidential. Instead, full frontal views of the Georgia woman's naked body, except for her head, were published in an alternative weekly newspaper in St....

Tobacco company petitions Missouri court to reverse $20M verdict.
February 14, 2008... Byline: Charles Emerick A tobacco company argued to the state's high court on Wednesday that it should reverse a $20 million verdict linking smoking to a woman's death. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. said the claims made in the wrongful...

Question of plaintiff's intentions at heart of wrongful death case.
February 14, 2008... Byline: Donna Walter The Missouri Supreme Court will decide whether a woman can move forward with a lawsuit blaming Bellefontaine Gardens nursing home for her grandmother's death. The problem is that the defendant, Sharon Peyton, doesn't...

Kansas City conductor loses colorblindness claim in federal court.
February 14, 2008... Byline: Aaron Bailey A federal judge derailed a Kansas man's lawsuit against a local railway company earlier this week, finding that colorblindness doesn't qualify for an Americans with Disabilities Act claim. Jerad Brunskill filed suit...

Federal judge approves settlement for Kansas City-based Italian American Pasta.
February 14, 2008... Byline: Aaron Bailey A federal judge this week approved a $25 million settlement regarding a federal securities class action lawsuit against America Italian Pasta Co. The suit was filed by shareholders in 2005 after the Kansas City-based...

At long last, dry spell at Kansas City's municipal court is over.
February 15, 2008... Byline: Charles Emerick Kathy Emke selected as first new city judge in three years Relief has finally come to Kansas City's municipal court. For the first time in more than three years and after four rejected panels, the Kansas City...

Review of repayment by inmates in Missouri debated.
February 15, 2008... Byline: Kelly Wiese An inmate whose money is being seized to cover his prison costs is challenging the statute that allows it. Missouri law allows the attorney general to take inmates' assets, upon court approval, to help offset the cost...

Insurance co. seeks to stop 'set up' suit in Johnson County Circuit Court for bad faith.
February 15, 2008... Byline: Aaron Bailey An insurance company is seeking a pre-emptive strike against a bad faith claim stemming from a $6 million wrongful death judgment in Johnson County last month. American Standard Insurance Co. of Wisconsin claims it is...

Mary Bass seeks appeal in federal court in Kansas City after state options fail.
February 15, 2008... Byline: Aaron Bailey A Kansas City mother serving eight consecutive life terms in prison for murdering two of her triplet sons is petitioning for her sentences to run concurrently. Mary Bass filed a request for habeas corpus in federal...

Armed with Shakespeare, felons step into new roles.
February 18, 2008... Byline: Julia M. Johnson Edgar Evans entered prison a convicted rapist. He emerged a Shakespearean actor. It's no exaggeration, he said -- acting profoundly transformed his life. You learn to be committed, he said about his theatrical...

Kansas City Courthouse Roundup: February 18, 2008.
February 18, 2008... Byline: Charles Emerick A woman who was the subject of an investigative report is suing a Kansas City news station for libel and slander. In the lawsuit filed Wednesday in Jackson County, Laura Walker claimed a February 2006 story that...

Commentary: Client's motivations almost turn loss into a win.
February 18, 2008... Byline: Craig Napier I lost again. Well, not really a big loss, but a hearing on child support did not go my client's way, and I don't think she cared. It's uncontroverted that dad is more than $10,000 in arrears on his child support and...

Richard Halliburton prepares to step down as head of Legal Aid of Western Missouri.
February 19, 2008... Byline: Aaron Bailey Richard Halliburton's 38 years with Legal Aid of Western Missouri ends next week. Well, sort of. While Halliburton is retiring from the executive director position at the end of the month, he hopes to continue helping...

Federal court in Kansas City asked to OK $1.9M settlement.
February 19, 2008... Byline: Aaron Bailey A $1.9 million settlement is nearing completion in a wrongful death lawsuit stemming from a 2006 boat collision on Truman Lake. Attorneys filed an application for approval of the settlement in federal court in Kansas...

Notes from the Northland: Park University in Missouri faces suit over wrongful firing.
February 19, 2008... Byline: Betsy Lee A wrongful termination lawsuit alleging misconduct on the part of Platte County's oldest university will be heard in that county after all. Dr. Mathew Kanjirathinkal, the former dean of graduate studies at Park...

Missouri Supreme Court rules sex offender distance limit is retrospective.
February 20, 2008... Byline: Donna Walter Court finds 1,000-foot limit from schools unconstitutional if offenders are already living there A 2-year-old state law barring sex offenders from living near schools cannot be used to force out offenders who were...

Independence doctor, Harrah's settle over wrongful accusation, arrest.
February 20, 2008... Byline: Charles Emerick An Independence doctor settled his case against a local casino for a bogus cheating allegation that led to his arrest. The agreement reached last week between Dr. William T. Brown and Harrah's North Kansas City was...

H&R Block wins dismissal of class action shareholder lawsuit in U.S. District Court.
February 20, 2008... Byline: Aaron Bailey A federal judge dismissed a class action lawsuit against H&R Block that alleged the company purposefully falsified financial statements to artificially inflate its stock prices. U.S. District Judge Ortrie D. Smith's...

Missouri Supreme Court says no; central docketing is a go.
February 20, 2008... Byline: Kelly Wiese While the debate over the best method for shuffling cases through the St. Louis Circuit Court likely will rage for a while, the change to a more centralized approach has been cleared to proceed. The state Supreme Court...

Kansas City-based software developer wins $7.1M verdict against A.G. Edwards.
February 21, 2008... Byline: Charles Emerick A Kansas City-based computer software developer received a $7.1 million jury award on charges that it was the victim of a license agreement violation. Overlap, based in downtown Kansas City, claimed A.G. Edwards &...

Missouri lawmakers say they need answers before they can address shrinking Second Injury Fund.
February 21, 2008... Byline: Scott Lauck More than a month and a half after the start of the 2008 legislative session, Missouri lawmakers still don't have a bill filed to deal with the state's Second Injury Fund. Numerous audits and reports have concluded that...

Judge rewrites language for stem cell measure`.
February 21, 2008... Byline: Kelly Wiese A judge has rewritten the summary of a proposed ballot measure that would prohibit embryonic stem cell research in the state. Cole County Circuit Judge Patricia Joyce on Wednesday threw out language crafted by the...

St. Louis attorney says blacks left out of judicial selection process.
February 21, 2008... Byline: Scott Lauck A St. Louis attorney is calling for changes to judicial selection because blacks haven't been allowed to participate enough in the process, he said. Elbert Walton said Wednesday that The Missouri Bar's attempt to bring...

KC attorneys sued over tax fraud schemes.
February 22, 2008... Byline: Aaron Bailey The U.S. Attorney's Office filed lawsuits against two Kansas City area attorneys Thursday, claiming the pair defrauded the government of hundreds of million of dollars. Allen R. Davison, of Overland Park, Kan., and A....

Missouri law students win international competition.
February 22, 2008... Byline: Donna Walter It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for two Washington University law students. Andrew Nash and Samir Kaushik, both in their third year of law school, won an international moot court competition this month in India...

Audit says Missouri governor's e-mail policy lacks clarity.
February 22, 2008... Byline: Scott Lauck A state audit faulted the Missouri governor's office for not having a clear policy addressing e-mail retention or Sunshine Law requests. The audit, released Thursday by State Auditor Susan Montee, said the governor's...

Law students without borders.
February 25, 2008... Byline: Kelly Wiese Wash. U. works with foreign schools in first-of-its-kind training program Kathryn Kuznitsky moved to St. Louis to attend law school at Washington University with hopes of someday working in a foreign country. Now...

Kansas City car dealers face suits over 'doc prep' fees.
February 25, 2008... Byline: Charles Emerick Car dealers throughout Kansas City are coming under fire for charging buyers hundreds of dollars each in allegedly illegal fees. A number of class action lawsuits filed over the past four months accused the...

Kansas City Courthouse Roundup: February 25, 2008.
February 25, 2008... Byline: Charles Emerick Attorneys defending Gov. Matt Blunt and some of his officials in a defamation and wrongful termination lawsuit want the case moved out of Jackson County. In a filing earlier this month, defense attorneys requested...

Commentary: A solo joe finally becomes a small-firm guy.
February 25, 2008... Byline: Craig Napier White & Napier, LLC, was finally formed a month or so ago. My buddy Weeze met us recently to discuss a logo, letterhead, and all that good stuff. A contract on our first advertisement has been signed, and our domain...

Byerly Jones: Lessons learned from folks in control of their lives.
February 26, 2008... Byline: Nancy Byerly Jones Far too many people feel they have lost control of their lives. Surviving yet another day of chaos becomes the accepted norm in their exhausting lifestyles. They feel they have no time to brainstorm how to change...

Disaster planning a part of business for Missouri law firms.
February 26, 2008... Byline: Donna Walter Standard of care for emergency response emerging Law firms and other businesses have both a legal duty and a natural inclination to prepare for disasters -- ranging from terrorist attacks and hurricanes to an...

Kansas City Legal Briefs: February 26, 2008.
February 26, 2008... Byline: Betsy Lee More than two years after they began the adoption process, a Platte City couple will go to court against the company that promised them a child. Philip Holloway, of Dougherty, Modin & Holloway, filed a breach of contract...

Kansas City police officer's frisking of 'suspicious' man ruled arbitrary.
February 26, 2008... Byline: Charles Emerick A man serving prison time for being a felon in possession of ammunition will have his case reopened, an appellate court ruled on Monday. A Kansas City police officer wrongly frisked Roy T. Hughes, a violation of his...

Kansas City man wins jury trial but falls short on award.
February 26, 2008... Byline: Aaron Bailey A federal jury on Monday decided an off-duty Kansas City police officer used excessive force and unlawfully arrested a man who was trying to help a seizure victim. But the jury apparently rejected the man's call to...

Lawsuit filed in federal court in Kansas City alleges fuel price fixing by railway cos.
February 27, 2008... Byline: Aaron Bailey A Carthage steel business filed a federal class-action lawsuit against the country's largest railway companies, alleging a massive conspiracy to fix prices. The lawsuit claims that the railway companies, including...

Missouri Bar President Charlie Harris Jr. signs on with boutique firm.
February 27, 2008... Byline: Aaron Bailey Missouri Bar President and Kansas City attorney Charlie Harris Jr. is switching law firms. Harris will leave Berkowitz Oliver Williams Shaw & Eisenbrandt to join Seyferth Knittig Blumenthal later this week. The firm...

Missouri Court of Appeals Western District affirms $212,000 civil judgment against Hy-Vee.
February 27, 2008... Byline: Aaron Bailey An appellate court on Tuesday upheld a $212,000 Jackson County civil judgment against Hy-Vee grocery stores. Attorneys for Hy-Vee wanted the jury's decision in the 2006 personal injury case overturned due to a voir...

Missouri Court of Appeals Western District takes its show on the road.
February 27, 2008... Byline: Scott Lauck Sometimes the courtroom and the classroom are one and the same. The Missouri Court of Appeals Western District on Tuesday morning moved its operation from downtown Kansas City to the Davis, Bethune & Jones Litigation...

Missouri Supreme Court: Attorney argues witness notes are a protected work product.
February 28, 2008... Byline: Donna Walter A lawyer representing a suspect in the disappearance of a 10-year-old boy asked the Missouri Supreme Court on Wednesday to deny a grand jury access to his witness notes. John Rogers represents Dawan Ferguson, a suspect...

Charters can't use funds set aside for Kansas City schools, federal appeals court says.
February 28, 2008... Byline: Charles Emerick A federal appeals court reiterated to the state on Wednesday that it cannot take money set aside for the repayment of the desegregation effort of Kansas City schools. The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday...

Kokoruda named chairman at Shughart law firm; succeeds Ward.
February 28, 2008... Byline: Aaron Bailey Thomas G. Kokoruda will take over as chairman of the board at Shughart Thomson & Kilroy next week. Kokoruda, 61, replaces Lawrence Ward, who after 20 years as chairman chose to step down to focus on practicing...

Alleged gunman from Joplin seeks trial in juvenile court.
February 29, 2008... Byline: Donna Walter A Joplin teenager accused of trying to shoot his principal should be reconsidered for a trial in juvenile court, his attorney told the Missouri Supreme Court on Wednesday. Thomas White received an incompetent defense...

Missouri lawyers urged to seek bar refund.
February 29, 2008... Byline: Kelly Wiese A group pushing to overhaul the way Missouri selects its judges wants lawyers around the state to seek their money back from The Missouri Bar if they disagree with its spending. It suggests redirecting that money to...

Missouri Supreme Court considers time frame in clergy abuse case.
February 29, 2008... Byline: Kelly Wiese Members of Missouri's Supreme Court have raised questions about whether a man who alleges he was sexually abused in the mid-1980s by clergy at a Catholic high school can proceed with a lawsuit he filed in 2006. ...

Federal Findings: U.S. District Court dismisses man's claim of WNBA duplicity.
February 29, 2008... Byline: Aaron Bailey A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit seeking $500 million from the NBA and WNBA. Kansas City resident Lightening Mitchell sued the basketball leagues last month claiming league officials stole his idea to form a women's...

Mo. Sexual Offender Treatment Center detainee has no right to publish newsletter.
February 29, 2008... Byline: Donna Walter A detainee at the Missouri Sexual Offender Treatment Center in Farmington does not have the First Amendment right to publish a newsletter, a federal judge said last week. William Bradford, a resident at the facility,...