Missouri Lawyers Weekly articles from March 2006

Missouri Lawyers Weekly archives from March 2006

Missouri Bar president launches media tour throughout state.(Doug Copeland )(Brief article)
March 6, 2006... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff Reporters won't need to travel to the state capital to get the background on some of the most significant issues affecting Missouri's justice system. Missouri Bar President Doug Copeland has organized...

Blackwell Sanders not moving St. Louis office.(Blackwell Sanders Peper Martin)
March 6, 2006... Byline: Erin Suess (This article was originally published in The Daily Record, St. Louis, Mo., another Dolan Media publication). Maybe the GenAmerica Building won't become the Blackwell Sanders Peper Martin building after all. ...

Annual St. Louis Daily Record Women's Justice Awards Banquet set for April 6.(Shulamith Simon, Gayle Williams and Rep. Margaret Donnelly awarded)(Brief Article)
March 6, 2006... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff Shulamith Simon, Gayle Williams and Rep. Margaret Donnelly, D-St. Louis County, will be honored at the 8th annual St. Louis Daily Record Women's Justice Awards Banquet on Thursday, April 6, at the...

Missouri Lawyers in the News.(Legal Services of Eastern Missouri appoints Jim Guest)(Hoffman Clark L.L.C. appoints Mark E. Hoffman)(Jane E. Cohen receives award)
March 6, 2006... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff Jim Guest has joined Legal Services of Eastern Missouri as the new director of the volunteer lawyers program. Guest joins LSEM from the Wyman Center, where he served as director of major gifts for the...

E-Discovery: Business is booming and lawyers are getting in on the trend.
March 6, 2006... Byline: Sylvia Hsieh Five years ago, law firms reacted with extreme skepticism when Michele Lange suggested that they needed an electronic discovery expert. Lange, a staff attorney with Kroll Ontrack Inc., a vendor that specializes in...

Avoiding the traps of family law practice.
March 6, 2006... Byline: Donna Walter Judge Dennis Smith, a family law attorney for 17 years before taking the bench in St. Louis County in 1995, recalled how he arrived at every pretrial conference with a proposed settlement agreement. "I had it...

Verdicts & Settlements March 6, 2006: $3 million verdict 'scary' for adoption lawyers.(Chandrika Collins v. Sanford Krigel and Krigel & Krigel P.C.)
March 6, 2006... Byline: Tom Harrison A recent $3 million malpractice verdict against a Kansas City adoption lawyer is a wake-up call to attorneys in these cases to make sure they clarify in writing to all parties exactly whom they are representing,...

Missouri Court of Appeals Southern District Case Summaries: March 6, 2006.
March 6, 2006... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff Contract Broker - Commission Where a property owner hired a commercial broker to sell property but the contract reserved the owner's right to sell the property on its own and required the...

Missouri Court of Appeals Western District Case Summaries: March 6, 2006.
March 6, 2006... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff Counties Salary Commission - Compensation Where a county assessor began her term five days after Section 53.082 - which provided that the annual salary for an assessor of her county's size was...

Missouri Supreme Court Decisions: March 6, 2006.
March 6, 2006... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff Constitutional Abortion - Informed Consent - Waiting Period (1) Where a 2003 Missouri law requires doctors to discuss a patient's risk factors before performing an abortion and obtain the...

United States Court of Appeals Eighth Circuit Case Summaries: March 6, 2006.(Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974)
March 6, 2006... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff Civil Procedure Deposition - Affidavit - Contradiction Where a city engineer testified in his deposition that a telephone utility employee indicated the utility might start relocating...

Verdicts & Settlements March 6, 2006: Tree trimmer garners verdict in product liability lawsuit.(Sean and Mindy Smiley v. Mobile Tool International, MTI-Insulated Products and Drake-Scruggs)
March 6, 2006... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff $3.8 million verdict On Feb. 23, 2002, plaintiff Sean Smiley was operating a Teco Saturn 5 aerial device while trimming a tree in Butler, Mo. Without warning the bolts holding the rotational...

Verdicts & Settlements March 6, 2006: Marriott settles premises liability case for $367,500.(Brezhnev, et al. v. Marriott International Inc.)(Brief Article)
March 6, 2006... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff $367,500 settlement A man who fell on a wet hotel room floor has settled his federal premises liability case against a hotel chain for $367,500. On Oct. 21, 2003, Vadim Brezhnev was staying at...

Verdicts & Settlements March 6, 2006: Fatal car accident leads to $300K settlement with ins. cos.(Moore v. Moore, Moore v. American International South Insurance Company)
March 6, 2006... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff $300,000 settlement The family of a man who died in a car accident has settled their wrongful death case against the driver, his insurance company and their own carrier for $300,000. On July...

Verdicts & Settlements March 6, 2006: Children awarded father's life insurance proceeds.
March 6, 2006... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff $126,237 judgment Four children who made claims on their father's life insurance policy have been awarded $126,237 in a federal interpleader action filed by the insurance company in response to an...

KC Metropolitan Bar Assn. crowns king and queen at Annual LEAP Mardi Gras Luncheon.(Kansas City Metropolitan Bar Association, Jolie Justus, Sanford Krigel)
March 13, 2006... Byline: Charles Emerick (This article was originally published in The Daily Record, Kansas City, MO, another Dolan Media publication).Jolie Justus hasn't had a chance to wear a crown since the 1989 Buccaneer Ball in Branson.As for Sanford...

Jefferson County Circuit Judge Patterson to retire.(Timothy J. Patterson)(Brief Article)
March 13, 2006... Byline: Cathy Kingsley Having served as both innovator and mentor, Jefferson County Circuit Judge Timothy J. Patterson will retire at the end of his term on Dec. 31, after 24 years on the bench. Patterson, 65, was elected Division 1...

Missouri Lawyers in the News: March 13, 2006.(appointments)
March 13, 2006... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff Alan G. Johnson, a business executive and attorney, died Feb. 20, 2006, of cancer at his ranch in Defiance. He was 71. Johnson became a partner in the law firm Susman, Stern, Agastein, Heifetz & Gallop...

Missouri's funeral protest law may be struck down in courts.
March 13, 2006... Byline: Thomas F. Harrison Fred Phelps, the furiously anti-gay minister whose picketing at military funerals sparked Missouri's new law against funeral protests, has an interesting item on his website: photocopies of checks totaling...

St. Louis City jury awards $46 million for wrongful deaths of young couple.
March 13, 2006... Byline: Charles Emerick The families of a young couple who died in a fiery 2002 car accident were awarded a record verdict last week by a St. Louis City jury.The parents of Jose Silva received $25,280,000, and the parents of Ana Silva were...

Kansas time bar applies to Missouri wrongful death suit.
March 13, 2006... Byline: Thomas F. Harrison A Missouri doctor who allegedly missed a Kansas patient's cancer can't be sued for wrongful death in Missouri because the suit is time-barred under Kansas law, says the Southern District Court of Appeals.The...

Missouri Court of Appeals Eastern District Case Summaries: March 13, 2006.
March 13, 2006... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff AppealInterlocutory - Class Action - CertificationEven though a Missouri statute allowed a party to file an interlocutory appeal from a class certification order, a party contesting the class...

Missouri Court of Appeals Southern District Case Summaries: March 13, 2006.
March 13, 2006... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff Criminal LawTrial - Delay - UMDDLEven though a defendant was not released from the Department of Corrections until 238 days after he filed a request for disposition of the underlying information within...

Missouri Court of Appeals Western District Case Summaries: March 13, 2006.
March 13, 2006... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff Criminal LawMiranda - Statements - InterrogationEven though the police officer's interview with the defendant began as a non-custodial interrogation, once the officer positioned herself in front of the...

United States Court of Appeals Eighth Circuit Case Summaries: March 13, 2006.
March 13, 2006... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff BankruptcyDischarge - Trespass - Continuing UseWhere a telecommunications company successfully defended a trespass suit after it installed a fiber optic cable and then filed for bankruptcy while the...

Verdicts & Settlements March 13, 2006: Cheshire Inn Hotel allowed to break lease with mgmt. company.(Apted-Hulling Inc.)
March 13, 2006... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff $255,339.57 verdictThe Cheshire Inn is under old management now that a St. Louis circuit judge has ordered the management company's lease to be rescinded.Plaintiff Apted-Hulling Inc. owns the real...

Verdicts & Settlements March 13, 2006: Doctor prevails in failure to diagnose kidney stones case.(Michalek v. Crawford)
March 13, 2006... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff Defendant's verdictA doctor sued for failing to diagnose kidney stones has prevailed in a Jefferson County medical malpractice case.In December 1995, Christina Michalek began experiencing burning and...

Rape victim sues apartment complex for inadequate security.(Nicole Romano )
March 13, 2006... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff $1.5 million settlementA 22-year-old woman who was abducted and sexually assaulted when she was on her way to visit a friend will receive a $1.5 million settlement from the apartment complex where the...

Verdicts & Settlements March 13, 206: Flooring company sues for loss of income coverage after fire.(SSW Inc. vs. Grinnell Mutual Reinsurance Co.)
March 13, 2006... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff $150,000 settlementAlthough each side claimed the other owed it money, a lawsuit between a flooring company that burned down and its insurance carrier was settled with the insurer paying $150,000 to...

Eastern District makes it easier to sue parents for child's car accident.
March 13, 2006... Byline: Joy Simmons The Eastern District Court of Appeals has made it easier to sue parents for "negligent entrustment" when a child causes a car accident.In this case, an 18-year-old had a history of driving under the influence of alcohol...

Is this the Western District's finest hour?(child support petition)
March 20, 2006... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff Next time you're trying to divine legislative intent, you might want to put down your statute book and pick up a French novel or a history of World War II.Or so it would seem from a recent Western...

Governor Blunt appoints Olsen to 17th Judicial Circuit.(Matt Blunt, Daniel W. Olsen )(Brief article)
March 20, 2006... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff Gov. Matt Blunt appointed Daniel W. Olsen as Associate Circuit Judge of the 17th Judicial Circuit. Olsen, 53 of Raymore, is a municipal judge for the Garden City, Lake Winnebago and Raymore Municipal...

St. Louis Bar Foundation honors two with annual award.(John Fox Arnold and Christian B. Peper)
March 20, 2006... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff The legal community may not know how close it came to missing two formidable attorneys.Neither John Fox Arnold nor Christian B. Peper, recently recognized by the St. Louis Bar Foundation with the...

Missouri Lawyers in the News: March 20, 2006.(Capes, Sokol, Goodman and Sarachan appoints David B. Cosgrove )(Brief article)
March 20, 2006... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff U.S. Attorney Todd P. Graves announced Friday, during a news conference that he is resigning after nearly five years of prosecuting federal cases in western Missouri. Graves said he planned to return...

Group of Missouri legislators are attempting to turning back the clock.
March 20, 2006... Byline: Donna Walter A group of Missouri legislators are pushing to wrest jurisdiction of impeachment trials from the state Supreme Court and place it within the Senate, a move The Missouri Bar says is intended to put politics where it...

Kansas City employee wins $13.9M verdict against Wal-Mart.(Haley-Campbell v. Wal-Mart Inc.)
March 20, 2006... Byline: Anne C. Vitale A Wal-Mart employee who claimed she was attacked and detained by a store security guard has won a $13.9 million verdict in her Jackson County false imprisonment case against Wal-Mart. The verdict included $2 million...

Woman who got Medicaid waiver entitled to attorney fee award.(Appeals' opinion in Hyde v. Department of Mental Health)
March 20, 2006... Byline: Joy Simmons A mother who won an emergency Medicaid waiver after successfully challenging a denial on appeal is entitled to an attorney fee award, says the Western District Court of Appeals in a case of first impression in the...

Missouri Court of Appeals Eastern District Case Summaries: March 20, 2006.
March 20, 2006... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff Appellate PracticeJurisdiction - Rules 81.04(a), 44.01(a) - TimelinessWhere an appellant filed a motion to vacate, reopen, correct, amend or modify a judgment of dissolution of marriage, the motion was...

Missouri Court of Appeals Southern District Case Summaries: March 20, 2006.
March 20, 2006... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff ContractLease Agreement - Breach - Default JudgmentWhere a company failed to file responsive pleadings to a second breach of lease agreement lawsuit while the first lawsuit on the same matter was...

Missouri Court of Appeals Western District Case Summaries: March 20, 2006.(Brief article)
March 20, 2006... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff AdministrativeMedicaid - Attorney Fees - Agency ProceedingWhere the Department of Mental Health reversed a decision to put an applicant on a waiting list for a Medicaid waiver, the department should...

United States Court of Appeals Eighth Circuit Case Summaries: March 20, 2006.(Federal Tort Claims Act)
March 20, 2006... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff Criminal LawEvidence - Past Dealings - IntentWhere a defendant was convicted for conspiracy to distribute crack cocaine and for distribution of and possession with intent to distribute cocaine, the...

Verdicts & Settlements March 20, 2006: Jackson County jury clears doctors in malpractice suit.(Curtis Pitts v. Onocology & Hematology Associates of Kansas City P.A., et. al)
March 20, 2006... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff Defendant's verdictA Jackson County jury found that a primary care physician and group of medical specialists were not responsible for the death of a Missouri woman and cleared them in a lost chance of...

Verdicts & Settlements Mar. 20, 2006: Car accident victim wins settlement.(Jane Doe v. ABC Corp.)
March 20, 2006... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff $775,000 settlementA woman injured in an automobile collision won a $775,000 settlement in a case brought against the employer of the other vehicle involved in the accident. The settlement was reached...

Verdicts & Settlements March 20, 2006: Rollover crash results in $750,000 settlement.(John and Sundee Leingang v. Laure Young)
March 20, 2006... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff $750,000 settlementA mediation settlement was reached Nov. 28, 2005, in the case of a Green County man injured in a roll over crash that occurred Oct. 6, 2001.John Leingang claimed that Laure Young...

Verdicts & Settlements March 20, 2006: Family settles case against home health care provider.(Evans v. Rein, et al.)
March 20, 2006... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff $275,000 settlementThe family of a man who died while under the care of a home health care provider has settled their wrongful death case against the company and its employee for $275,000.Jack Evans,...

Law professor uses "The Wizard of Oz" movie to demonstrate witness cross-examination.
March 27, 2006... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff "I'll get you, my pretty," is the statement you claimed Ms. Witch cackled to you?You were aware Ms. Witch would die if she were exposed to water?You never feared for your life when you decided to use...

Lawyers Association of St. Louis to honor civil rights leaders.(St. Louis' Award of Honor, Frankie Freeman and Margaret Bush Wilson)
March 27, 2006... Byline: Emily Umbright (This article originally ran in The Daily Record, St. Louis, MO, another Dolan Media publication.)Longtime legal and civil rights leaders Frankie Freeman and Margaret Bush Wilson will receive the Lawyers Association...

Former New Orleans attorney begins new position as general counsel for MO Dept. of Revenue.(Rod Chapel)
March 27, 2006... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff Former New Orleans attorney Dwayne C. Jefferson was among other Tulane University Law School alums at a 10-year reunion last spring that raised their glasses to congratulate former classmate Rod Chapel...

Missouri Lawyers in the News: March 27, 2006.
March 27, 2006... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff Arthur L. Smith, Husch & Eppenberger L.L.C., has been named a "Best Lawyer" in the area of Information Technology Law in IP Law & Business' March 2006 edition. IP Law & Business is an American Lawyer...

Use of eminent domain for redevelopment is blocked by MO Supreme Court.(Broadway-Washington Associates, Ltd. v. Manners)
March 27, 2006... Byline: Thomas F. Harrison A city can't condemn property under a redevelopment ordinance unless it pays for it within five years of the date the ordinance is adopted, says the Missouri Supreme Court.Kansas City had argued that it only had...

MO Supreme Court poised to makes disciplinary history of attorneys available online.
March 27, 2006... Byline: Donna Walter The Missouri Supreme Court seems poised to make it easier for the public to access the disciplinary history of attorneys by making that information available online.While disciplinary actions are already public record,...

Workers' comp cases reflect pro-business shift by MO Labor and Industrial Relations Commission.
March 27, 2006... Byline: Heather Cole On March 16, the Missouri Labor and Industrial Relations Commission knocked down Robert Stonecipher's $96,000 workers' compensation award to $8,200. In January, the commission decided that just because Supervisor...

Arbitrator orders MIssouri nursing home to pay wrongful death claim.(Estate of Anna Berniece Edwards v. N&R of Platte City Inc. d/b/a/ Hillview Nursing & Rehab and Health Systems Inc.)
March 27, 2006... Byline: Natalie White In one of the first awards against a nursing home under the Missouri Omnibus Nursing Home Act, an arbitrator ordered a Platte City, Mo., nursing home to pay $791,876 to the family of an 87-year-old woman who fell out...

MO Interest on Lawyers' Trust Accounts program comes out of 3-year interest-earning slump.
March 27, 2006... Byline: Donna Walter The Missouri Interest on Lawyers' Trust Accounts program is coming out of its three-year interest-earning slump to the tune of almost $918,000. That's about $372,000 more made in 2005 than in 2004, and it's money that...

Missouri Court of Appeals Eastern District Case Summaries: March 27, 2006.
March 27, 2006... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff Appellate PracticeWorkers' Compensation - Temporary/Partial Award - Not AppealableWhere the employer and its insurer in a workers' compensation case appeal from the Labor and Industrial Relations...

Missouri Court of Appeals Southern District Case Summaries: March 27, 2006.
March 27, 2006... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff Criminal LawJuror Misconduct - Evidence - Admissibility(1) Where a man was accused of raping and sodomizing his daughter and a juror failed to disclose that his daughter had been a victim of rape, the...

Missouri Court of Appeals Western District Case Summaries: March 27, 2006.
March 27, 2006... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff AdministrativeDivision of Assets - 'Institutionalized Spouse' - Section 208.010.6Where the Missouri Department of Social Services, Family Support Division, deactivated a nursing facility resident's...

Missouri Supreme Court Case Summaries: March 27, 2006.
March 27, 2006... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff Appellate PracticeChild Molestation - Final Judgment - Not AppealableWhere a family court division judge adopted and confirmed the division commissioner's findings that a juvenile officer failed to...

United States Court of Appeals Eighth Circuit Case Summaries: March 27, 2006.(Fair Housing Act of 1968, Civil Rights Act of 1964)
March 27, 2006... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff Civil RightsDiscrimination - Homeowners Insurance - Filed Rate DoctrineWhere plaintiffs sued multiple insurance companies under the Fair Housing Act and the Civil Rights Acts for allegedly...

Verdicts & Settlements March 27, 2006: Sidewalk fall leads to fractured shoulder.(Shirley M. Stark v. Virginia Alexander & The City of St. Louis)
March 27, 2006... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff Defense verdictA south St. Louis woman's trip and fall on a residential sidewalk was her own fault, a St. Louis jury decided in a lawsuit that targeted the city and a homeowner, in front of whose house...

Verdicts and Settlements March 27, 2006: Verdict sets record for St. Francois County.(Anita and David Talley v. Don Lyle Douglas III and Robert W. Ruser, d/b/a Robert W. Ruser Trucking Co.)
March 27, 2006... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff $100,000 verdictA St. Francois County Circuit Court jury set a record on Oct. 19, 2005, when it awarded a woman $100,000 for injuries suffered from a car crash on Highway 67 in rural Missouri. After...

Verdicts & Settlements March 27, 2006: Man thrown over bridge receives settlement.(Jonathan VonEngeln v. Jim Edwards and Maxwell Custom Trailers & Pick-up Truck Accessories Inc.)
March 27, 2006... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff $187,500 settlementSedalia attorney Rob Russell negotiated the settlement of a personal injury suit involving a Mexico, Mo., utility trailer manufacturer and a Boonville man who was driving the truck...

Verdicts & Settlements March 27, 2006: Firefighter charges breathing equipment failed.(Donald Winkler, et al. v. Survavair Inc.,)
March 27, 2006... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff Confidential settlementAn injured St. Louis firefighter reached a confidential settlement with the makers of his breathing equipment just as a jury was being sworn in at St. Louis City Circuit...