Daily Record (Kansas City, MO) articles from September 2007

Daily Record (Kansas City, MO) archives from September 2007

Lump sum alimony not deductible, Tax Court rules.(Reprint)
September 1, 2007... Byline: Lawyers USA Staff BOSTON -- A husband's $9,600 in payments to his ex-wife is not deductible as alimony because the ex-wife's attorney characterized the payments as a "lump sum" obligation in the final draft of their property...

8th Circuit says damages not needed for distress.
September 3, 2007... Byline: Donna Walter Missouri plaintiffs alleging intentional infliction of emotional distress do not have to prove medical damages, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said this week. The decision was the 8th Circuit's interpretation of...

Kansas City Legal Briefs: September 4, 2007.
September 4, 2007... Byline: Charles Emerick A federal judge threw out a woman's lawsuit claiming race discrimination against the judges of the Jackson County Circuit Court. U.S. District Judge Nanette Laughrey on Wednesday granted Jackson County's motion to...

Nonpartisan court plan, baseball on tap for annual bar meeting.
September 4, 2007... Byline: Allison Retka Major players in the ongoing controversy over Missouri's selection of judges will sit down to hash out the issues of the nonpartisan court plan at The Missouri Bar's annual meeting later this month. Current and...

U of Missouri-Kansas City to honor anniversary of Charles Evans Whittaker's appointment.
September 4, 2007... Byline: The Daily Record Staff The University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law will celebrate the anniversary of the only Missourian to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. Charles Evans Whittaker joined the court in 1957. He is a 1924...

Commentary: Path to shrinking begins with one step -- at 6 a.m.
September 4, 2007... Byline: Craig Napier Fat is as fat does. Or maybe it's stupid is as stupid does. Big news flash, some of us lawyers are fat. I speak from experience. I cast no stones. The scary thing is though, when I started down this law road I was...

Verizon Wireless settles some phone tax suits in Missouri.
September 5, 2007... Byline: Kelly Wiese Verizon Wireless has agreed to settle for about $30 million its share of a lawsuit filed by a couple dozen Missouri cities over cell phone taxes. The company has agreed to pay two years' worth of back taxes, plus about...

St. Louis federal judge rules federal overtime dispute could be class action lawsuit.
September 5, 2007... Byline: Donna Walter A Phoenix-based maker of audio equipment faces a possible class action lawsuit concerning overtime pay after a decision last week by a St. Louis federal judge. U.S. District Judge Catherine E. Perry approved...

St. Louis trials set in fireworks deaths, after $1M settlements reached.
September 5, 2007... Byline: Kelly Wiese More than four years after a fireworks explosion killed five workers in Florida, what's left of the wrongful death and personal injury lawsuits that followed are set for trial in St. Louis in 2008. The families of the...

Kansas City Legal Briefs: September 5, 2007.
September 5, 2007... Byline: The (Kansas City) Daily Record Betonsports' Kaplan renews bail bid Gary Kaplan, the Betonsports Plc founder captured 10 months after the U.S. government indicted him on Internet betting charges, renewed his bail request in...

$2.2M verdict goes to contractor on Highway 71 in Missouri.
September 5, 2007... Byline: Charles Emerick The Missouri Department of Transportation will pay a Kansas City contractor for work he performed on the Bruce R. Watkins Expressway. A Cole County jury returned a unanimous $2.2 million verdict last week in favor...

Appellate Judicial Commission to seek Missouri Court of Appeals' Western District judge.
September 6, 2007... Byline: Daily Record Staff The Appellate Judicial Commission is accepting applications for the position of judge of the Missouri Court of Appeals' Western District, to fill the vacancy created by the Aug. 1 retirement of Judge Robert G....

Resolution of lawsuit may clear way for new municipal judges in Kansas City.
September 6, 2007... Byline: Charles Emerick Now that a hang-up involving a federal lawsuit is resolved, the process of possibly adding another judge at the Kansas City Municipal Court will begin. An ordinance to do away with background checks of judicial...

Missouri Supreme Court: Convicted killer tries again to avoid death penalty.
September 6, 2007... Byline: Donna Walter The Missouri Supreme Court on Wednesday heard for the fourth time a death sentence appeal by convicted murderer Ernest Lee Johnson. Johnson, represented by special public defender Elizabeth Unger Carlyle, argued before...

Kansas City Legal Briefs: September 7, 2007.
September 7, 2007... Byline: The Daily Record Staff Former commissioner receives prison time for undisclosed loan A former Clay County Family Court commissioner received a prison sentence Thursday for taking a loan from an attorney that appeared before...

Third-annual Heartland Diversity Legal Job Fair matches students with firms.
September 7, 2007... Byline: Charles Emerick Without the Heartland Diversity Legal Job Fair, James Gore might not have moved to Kansas City. Gore, who was hired by Fields & Brown after the first job fair, is a graduate of the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law...

Skrzycki: Labor seeks unlikely Bush help in organizing.
September 9, 2007... Byline: Cindy Skrzycki U.S. labor unions are asking the Bush administration for an unlikely Labor Day present -- to make it easier for them to organize workers. The United Steelworkers, United Auto Workers and five other unions petitioned...

Breckenridge tapped for Supreme Court.
September 10, 2007... Byline: Scott Lauck After 43 days of anxiety, acrimony and accusations, Gov. Matt Blunt on Friday made a choice most observers had expected him to make from the get-go: naming Patricia Breckenridge as the state's newest Supreme Court...

Kansas City Courthouse Roundup: September 10, 2007.
September 10, 2007... Byline: Charles Emerick Appellate writ halts Allstate case An appellate panel ordered a Jackson County judge last week to hold off on imposing fines or enforcing discovery requests in a bad-faith case against Allstate Insurance Co. The...

Videoconferencing up for a vote in St. Louis.
September 10, 2007... Byline: Donna Walter The St. Louis Circuit Court is scheduled to vote this month on a proposed local rule that would allow its probate division to conduct civil commitment hearings through videoconferencing. A group of psychiatric...

Commentary: Changing gears is more than shtick for solos.
September 10, 2007... Byline: Craig Napier I started out the day talking a client off of the ledge over another jerk baby's daddy. Then a business client called about getting another draft together of an asset purchase agreement. My dad called needing an...

Missouri's abortion clinics push for injunction.
September 11, 2007... Byline: Charles Emerick Opponents of a new Missouri law that establishes new requirements for abortion clinics continued their fight in federal court Monday, claiming the state is unfairly targeting abortion providers. During a day-long...

Former Missouri Supreme Court judge defends judicial selection process.
September 11, 2007... Byline: Kelly Wiese A former chief justice of Missouri's Supreme Court on Monday defended the way Missouri chooses judges for its highest courts. Judge Michael Wolff, whose term as chief justice ended in June, spoke to a group of law...

Skrzycki: Stealth rules pit trial lawyers versus companies.
September 11, 2007... Byline: Cindy Skrzycki Official Washington loves the word stealth. It connotes intrigue and secrecy, making the term well understood in a capital where spies and invisible fighter jets aren't all that's sneaking around. At least that's how...

Chief justice defends court plan to Missouri senators.
September 12, 2007... Byline: Allison Retka Chief Justice Laura Denvir Stith found broad support Tuesday from the Senate committee that called her to testify in Jefferson City on Missouri's judicial selection process. All committee members present at the state...

Missouri Court of Appeals rules endangerment law doesn't cover unborn.
September 12, 2007... Byline: Donna Walter Missouri law does not allow the state to prosecute a pregnant woman for risking the health of her unborn child, the Kansas City-based Missouri Court of Appeals said Tuesday. The court's decision didn't come as a...

Dead girl's parents sue her boyfriend in Jackson County Circuit Court.
September 12, 2007... Byline: Charles Emerick A man serving a 22-year prison sentence is back in court again for the way he handled his ex-girlfriend's dead body. Matt Davis, sentenced to prison two years ago for abandonment of a corpse and drug possession, was...

Candidates in Missouri may have to return cash.
September 12, 2007... Byline: Kelly Wiese Republican Gov. Matt Blunt and Democratic Attorney General Jay Nixon will have to prove to state ethics officials why they need to keep millions of dollars in campaign contributions. The Missouri Ethics Commission met...

Jackson County Court orders school district election onto ballot.
September 12, 2007... Byline: The (Kansas City) Daily Record Staff A Jackson County judge on Tuesday ordered the Kansas City School Board to allow an election in November that could allow seven schools to move to the Independence School District. Judge W....

Kansas City Legal Briefs: September 12, 2007.
September 12, 2007... Byline: The (Kansas City) Daily Record Staff Blunt Appoints Jarrett to Public Service Commission Gov. Matt Blunt on Tuesday appointed his former general counsel to the Public Service Commission for a seven-year term. The body regulates...

Hundreds to join the ranks of MIssouri lawyers.
September 13, 2007... Byline: Donna Walter The lawyers are coming! The lawyers are coming! Of the 798 people who took the state bar exam in July, 707 passed -- a noteworthy 88.6 percent. "People were obviously studying hard," said Kellie Early, executive...

Kansas City court closer to getting judges.
September 13, 2007... Byline: Charles Emerick A Kansas City Council committee pushed the city's municipal court one step closer to filling several judicial vacancies. The Finance and Audit Committee on Monday unanimously backed the repeal of an ordinance that...

New lawyers prepare to join ranks.
September 13, 2007... Byline: Donna Walter The lawyers are coming! The lawyers are coming! Of the 798 people who took the state bar exam in July, 707 passed -- a noteworthy 88.6 percent. People were obviously studying hard, said Kellie Early, executive director...

Kansas City lawyer Pratt elected 2nd in command of Missouri House.
September 13, 2007... Byline: Scott Lauck Bryan Pratt, an attorney at Shook Hardy & Bacon in Kansas City and a Republican state representative from Blue Springs, has been elected speaker pro tem of the Missouri House. The position puts Pratt, 34, into the...

Judge denies request to block transfer of Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority money.
September 13, 2007... Byline: Kelly Wiese A judge is considering a lawsuit by student borrowers seeking to derail Gov. Matt Blunt's plan to use student loan agency money for college buildings. After more than a year of debates and changes to the plan, the...

Governor Blunt nominates Chapel to Administrative Hearing Commission.
September 13, 2007... Byline: The (Kansas City) Daily Record Gov. Matt Blunt on Wednesday nominated Rod Chapel, currently the head of the Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations, to a six- year term on the quasi-judicial Administrative Hearing...

Attorney sues Kansas City law firm for sex discrimination.
September 14, 2007... Byline: Charles Emerick Important casework at a Kansas City law firm is regularly given to male lawyers, a former associate charged in a lawsuit this week. Rachael Taggart claimed ongoing sex discrimination forced her to leave Harris...

Career Criminals Unit scores early successes.
September 14, 2007... Byline: Allison Retka A new prosecuting unit in the city of St. Louis has come out the gate strong, going eight-for-eight last month in the successful prosecution of a particularly persistent strain of lawbreakers -- career criminals. In...

Rubin Reality Check needed before messing with tax law.
September 14, 2007... Byline: Amity Shlaes, Bloomberg News The Democrats are on the march, the tax march that is. Charles Rangel, the New York congressman and chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, is talking about the mother of all reforms, a plan that...

Home foreclosures, delinquencies at record high.
September 15, 2007... Byline: Kathleen M. Howley, Bloomberg News The number of Americans who may lose their homes to foreclosure reached a record in the second quarter as late payments by subprime borrowers surged to one out of every seven loans. Lenders began...

Only Supreme Court Justice from Missouri to be honored.
September 17, 2007... Byline: The Kansas City Daily Record His tenure was short, and his impact negligible. Yet former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Charles Evan Whittaker stands as the only Missourian to serve on the nation's high court. Whittaker, who is also...

Kansas City Courthouse Roundup: September 17, 2007.
September 17, 2007... Byline: Charles Emerick For the way he treated the body of his dead ex-girlfriend, an incarcerated man will pay the woman's parents $500,000. A Jackson County jury returned the verdict against Matt Davis Wednesday evening in a case that...

Commentary: The triumphant return of Mike's Tavern.
September 17, 2007... Byline: Craig Napier About a month back I wrote a column about my great concern that the one constant in my life over the past several years was changing, and I was worried. My bar had changed hands and I didn't know what to do with...

Gone golfin'.
September 17, 2007... Byline: The (Kansas City) Daily Record

Sugar Creek refinery cancer case settled confidentially.
September 18, 2007... Byline: Charles Emerick For the third time in less than a year, BP agreed to settle another Sugar Creek case. Terms of the deal are still being discussed, according to a joint statement released Monday by the parties. The final amount will...

From behind the scenes, Independence attorney helps Porter case.
September 18, 2007... Byline: Scott Lauck H. Kent Desselle isn't Dr. Phil. When Tina Porter's children disappeared three years ago, he didn't thrust himself into the spotlight. Were it not for a chance encounter through his office staff, he might never have...

Kansas City-based Blackwell Sanders, St. Louis-based Husch in merger discussions.
September 18, 2007... Byline: Heather Cole Two of Missouri's largest law firms are mulling a cross-state union. A combination of St. Louis firm Husch & Eppenberger and Kansas City-based Blackwell Sanders would create a 630-attorney firm with anticipated revenue...

Missouri Court of Appeals' Eastern District panel more cause for scrutiny.
September 19, 2007... Byline: Donna Walter The Nonpartisan Court Plan works, and the panel of nominees for the Missouri Court of Appeals' Eastern District is proof of that, said a former member of the Appellate Judicial Commission. But the president of the St....

Supporters defend Whittaker's legacy: Only Missourian to serve on U.S. Supreme Court.
September 19, 2007... Byline: Charles Emerick Charles Evans Whittaker's rise to the U.S. Supreme Court was swift, as was his decent. His five-year stint on the bench of the nation's high court resulted in few contributions to the development of the law,...

Law firms recognized for policies on gays.
September 19, 2007... Byline: Cynthia Cotts, Bloomberg News U.S. law firms showed tremendous improvement in policies toward gay and lesbian employees in the past year, the Human Rights Campaign, a Washington-based gay-rights group, said in an annual report. The...

Kansas City-based dog treat manufacturer settles federal lawsuit.
September 19, 2007... Byline: Charles Emerick The Kansas City-based manufacturer of a popular dog treat settled a class action case brought against it early last year. S&M NuTec, the maker of Greenies, agreed to settle the case, which claimed that the treat...

St. Louis Circuit judge finds north St. Louis boy guilty of murder, but not tried as adult.
September 19, 2007... Byline: Allison Retka In the course of eight short hours Monday, a 13-year-old North St. Louis boy was told he wouldn't be tried as an adult, found guilty of second-degree murder and sentenced to juvenile detention until the age of 18. St....

Panel announced for Court of Appeals' Eastern District in Missouri.
September 19, 2007... Byline: The (Kansas City) Daily Record The Appellate Judicial Commission submitted three names Tuesday to Gov. Matt Blunt to fill a vacancy on the Missouri Court of Appeals' Eastern District. The vacancy exists due to the Aug. 10 retirement...

They YouTubed the law -- and the law won: Missouri men charged for threats made in violent rap video.
September 20, 2007... Byline: Charles Emerick Two northwest Missouri men charged this week for threats made in a violent rap video likely cannot turn to the First Amendment for protection. Andrew County prosecutors filed several charges against two 20-year-old...

St. Louis County cities could get over $30M in agreement with AT&T.
September 20, 2007... Byline: Allison Retka A delayed hearing in St. Louis County court might signal the approach of another big settlement in the battle between several cell phone service providers and 23 St. Louis County municipalities. The hearing, scheduled...

Kansas City Legal Briefs: September 20, 2007.
September 20, 2007... Byline: The (Kansas City) Daily Record Judge Gray's portrait to be unveiled in October A portrait of former Jackson County Circuit Judge Jon R. Gray will be unveiled at 3 p.m. Oct. 18 in the Jury Assembly Room on the third floor of the...

Plaintiffs seek punishment for immigrant laws.
September 21, 2007... Byline: Allison Retka Plaintiffs' attorneys in a Missouri muncipality's immigration dispute argued stridently Thursday that the city should be punished -- or the mayor even jailed -- for continuing to pass ordinances regulating the hiring...

K.C. City Council amends court background checks.
September 21, 2007... Byline: Charles Emerick The Kansas City Council agreed to amend a "roadblock" that prevented the hiring of additional judges at the city's municipal court. Rather than repealing a seven-month-old background-check ordinance, the council...

Cole County judge seems ready to side with state on school funding suit.
September 21, 2007... Byline: Kelly Wiese A judge indicated Thursday he's inclined to agree with the state that it is meeting its constitutional obligation to spend one-fourth of its money on public schools. Cole County Circuit Judge Richard Callahan ruled last...

Connaghan: Run to the light, Governor.
September 21, 2007... Byline: Will Connaghan I just finished going through my morning e-mail. It took me less than two minutes to read and delete the 20 messages I received since I left work Wednesday. On an average day I receive about 100 e-mails. Checking...

Kansas City public defender to win award.
September 21, 2007... Byline: The Daily Record Randall J. Schlegel, an assistant public defender in the Kansas City Office of the Missouri State Public Defender, has been named as the 2007 recipient of the Missouri Defender of Distinction Award. The award,...

Decades-old abuse claims will go to trial, Jackson County judge rules.
September 24, 2007... Byline: Charles Emerick Sexual abuse allegations against a Kansas City priest will be heard by a jury, a Jackson County judge ruled Friday. Francis Scheuring sued Father Francis McGlynn about 30 years after the last alleged incident of sex...

Kansas City Courthouse Roundup: September 24, 2007.
September 24, 2007... Byline: Charles Emerick After the Missouri Court of Appeals' Western District rejected its arguments earlier this month, Allstate Insurance Co. is now turning to the state's high court in hopes of keeping trade secrets from becoming...

Abortion clinics hope to take fight over surgical-center law to state court.
September 24, 2007... Byline: Scott Lauck While they wait for a federal court to issue a ruling, opponents of a Missouri law that establishes new requirements for abortion clinics also are seeking to take their case to state courts. Attorneys for Planned...

Commentary: Staying in judges' good graces takes patience.
September 24, 2007... Byline: Craig Napier I have a lot of respect for judges, in general. I mean, the reason I got into this business was a juvenile court judge in Ohio. He was a fair and eager participant in the lives of the children who appeared before him....

Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District upholds $1.3M judgment.
September 26, 2007... Byline: Scott Lauck The Missouri Court of Appeals' Western District on Tuesday affirmed a judgment of more than $1.3 million against the purchasers of a Clay County gun shop, despite arguments that the award was excessive. The judgment...

KC firms scramble for St. Louis space after Centene plan.
September 26, 2007... Byline: Heather Cole Centene Corp.'s announcement that it will build its new headquarters in downtown St. Louis is likely to change some law firms' searches for office space. In particular, Armstrong Teasdale, which counts Centene as a...

Missouri Bar Board of Governors approves diversity measure.
September 27, 2007... Byline: Scott Lauck The Missouri Bar Board of Governors on Wednesday approved a measure intended to increase the number of minorities, women and other underrepresented groups within its ranks. The highly controversial measure had been...

Jackson County Circuit Court: Priest settles for $225,000 in alleged sex abuse case.
September 27, 2007... Byline: Charles Emerick A man who accused a priest of sexually abusing him more than three decades ago at an Independence church agreed to a settlement that will pay him $227,000. The deal, reached late Tuesday, laid out that the Diocese...

Kansas City 'versatile' trial judge will retire next month.
September 28, 2007... Byline: Charles Emerick A veteran Jackson County Circuit judge will retire from the bench next month, becoming the third to leave the court in the past year. Judge J.D. Williamson will step away from the bench on Oct. 31. He will do...