Missouri Lawyers Weekly articles from March 2009

Missouri Lawyers Weekly archives from March 2009

Slow pour: Anheuser-Busch makes vendors wait 120 days for payment.(Missouri)
March 2, 2009... Byline: Heather Cole The news that Anheuser-Busch InBev is making its vendors wait longer for payment created a stir in the St. Louis legal community. The brewery, which has hired at least eight Missouri law firms, is paying goods and...

Sandberg Phoenix & von Gontard lease renewal negotiations will impact St. Louis Centre tower.
March 2, 2009... Byline: Heather Cole Sandberg Phoenix & von Gontard is in the throes of lease renewal negotiations for the firm's office in downtown St. Louis, and more than dollars are at stake. The 65-attorney litigation and corporate firm is the...

Missouri Lawyers in the News: March 2, 2009.
March 2, 2009... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal announced that St. Louis partner Jennifer A. Marler will assume the role of real estate practice leader. > In >her new position, she will be responsible for the day-to-day...

Missouri Supreme Court decides not to address most work comp challenges.
March 2, 2009... Byline: Allison Retka In the hours after the Missouri Supreme Court handed down its long-awaited decision on the constitutionality of the 2005 changes to the state's workers' compensation law, some surprising press releases started...

Anticipated legal aid funding dips: Missouri Lawyer Trust Foundation warns of steep drop in 2010.
March 2, 2009... Byline: Heather Cole The Missouri Lawyer Trust Account Foundation is alerting the legal aid organizations and other legal programs it helps support that there may be a steep drop in funding next year because of the sharp decline in...

Under the dome: Missouri legislators may scale back historic tax credits.
March 2, 2009... Byline: Jason Rosenbaum A popular tax incentive developed by a St. Louis attorney is under fire from members of the General Assembly seeking to reconfigure Missouri's tax credit system. Since its implementation, the historic...

Missouri Supreme Court: execution protocol not subject to rulemaking procedures.
March 2, 2009... Byline: Stephanie Maniscalco Death-row inmates lost an administrative challenge to the state's lethal-injection method when the Missouri Supreme Court held in a 4-3 decision that the injection protocol is not subject to notice-and-comment...

Commentary: wrongful death provision gets it right.(Missouri)
March 2, 2009... Byline: Will Connaghan Among the many factors to consider when determining damages in a wrongful death suit: Was there pain and suffering? Were there any unusual circumstances to consider? How old was the deceased? In one of our...

Missouri Supreme Court ruling bolsters employee's ability to sue.
March 2, 2009... Byline: Angela Riley A recent Missouri Supreme Court case has furthered the court's trend in accommodating plaintiffs in employment discrimination cases. The court in Cynthia Hill v. Ford Motor Company followed the standard it...

Former Justice O'Connor speaks in St. Louis: touts civics education.
March 2, 2009... Byline: Donna Walter Ignorance is the most destructive force facing an independent judiciary, former U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor told a crowd of 620 fellow legal professionals Wednesday night. O'Connor was...

Missouri Supreme Court issues three apologies, no explanation for delay in workers' comp reform case.
March 2, 2009... Byline: Heather Cole It was a case challenging the constitutionality of workers' compensation reform laws passed at the beginning of then-Gov. Matt Blunt's term politically tinged and high profile. How the Missouri Supreme Court...

Two lawyers prepare for their first arguments before the Missouri Supreme Court.
March 2, 2009... Byline: Allison Retka Derek Teeter tugs his rolling file cabinet through the gilded hallways of the Missouri Supreme Court. He seems hyperalert, buzzing and a bit disoriented. After pushing open the front door to the bricked courthouse and...

Missouri Court of Appeals Eastern District Case Summaries: March 2, 2009.
March 2, 2009... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff Administrative Medical License - Judicial Review - Timeliness Where a doctor sought judicial review of a disciplinary order of his medical license, the trial court lacked jurisdiction over the...

Missouri Court of Appeals Southern District Case Summaries: March 2, 2009.
March 2, 2009... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff Appellate Practice Record On Appeal - Copy Of Judgment - Criminal Case Where the record on appeal in a criminal case did not include a copy of the final judgment, the appeal must be dismissed....

Missouri Court of Appeals Western District Case Summaries: March 2, 2009.
March 2, 2009... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff Administrative State Income Tax - Missouri Resident - Good Faith Even though a Missouri taxpayer testified that he spent most of his time working in Chicago during 2002, the taxpayer did not...

Missouri Supreme Court Case Summaries: March 2, 2009.
March 2, 2009... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff Contracts Subdivision Development - Release of Bonds - Attorney's Fees Where a subdivision developer sought a declaratory judgment against a county for release of bonds following a dispute with...

U.S. Bankruptcy Court - Appellate Panel Case Summaries: March 2, 2009.
March 2, 2009... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff Bankruptcy Motion For Contempt - Monetary Damages - Adversary Proceeding Where a bankruptcy court denied debtors' motion for contempt against a creditor because the court concluded that the...

United States Court of Appeals Eighth Circuit Case Summaries: March 2, 2009.
March 2, 2009... Byline: Missouri Lawyers Weekly Staff Administrative Migratory Bird Treaty Act - 'Preservation Facility' Where the operator of a game-processing operation was found guilty by a magistrate judge for having untagged geese at his...

St. Louis-based Lewis, Rice wins $60M verdict for health care clinic.
March 9, 2009... Byline: Donna Walter A jury in Southern Illinois awarded a $60 million verdict to a not-for-profit community health care clinic in a fraud case alleging a nationwide equipment-leasing scam. St. Louis-based Lewis, Rice & Fingersh...

Commentary: reform the plan by returning to its origins.(judicial selection)(Missouri)
March 9, 2009... Byline: Robert H. Dierker Memories are short. From 1985 to 1993, Gov. John Ashcroft appointed all three members of the Missouri Appellate Commission and all seven members of the Missouri Supreme Court, four of them during the time that...

Cashing out: President Casino bankruptcy wraps up with approval of law firm bills.(Missouri)
March 9, 2009... Byline: Heather Cole After seven years and $6.3 million for lead debtor's counsel Thompson Coburn, the bankruptcy of the President Casino in St. Louis has ended. Maybe. Bankruptcy Judge Kathy Surratt-States approved payment of the unpaid...

Legislative intent prevails in workers' comp case in Missouri.
March 9, 2009... Byline: David Knopf Workers are now required to give notice to an employer of an occupational disease or repetitive trauma, but only once the injury has been diagnosed as work-related, the Court of Appeals has held in a first...

8th Circuit defines removal standard for defendants.
March 9, 2009... Byline: Stephanie Maniscalco Chocolate manufacturers who were sued in Iowa state court for alleged antitrust violations may be able to remove the class action case to federal court, according to a decision last week by the 8th U.S. Circuit...

Former Mo. appellate judge's decision to hear cases involving his future employer raises questions.
March 9, 2009... Byline: Allison Retka Missouri's code of judicial ethics calls for judges to disqualify themselves from cases that involve law firms they might be leaving the bench to join. But what about a state office like the Attorney General's...

Why good bills go bad in Missouri Legislature.
March 9, 2009... Byline: Jason Rosenbaum At a press conference last year after a particularly contentious day in the Missouri House, Speaker Rod Jetton was asked whether he was concerned that the General Assembly's lower chamber had just passed...

Staying closer to home: large law firms scale back retreats in face of recession.(Missouri)
March 9, 2009... Byline: Heather Cole Lathrop & Gage typically has an all-attorney retreat every three years, meeting early in the year in a warm location such as Arizona. Even though 2009 marks the third year since the last all-attorney retreat,...

Missouri appeals court upholds insurance exclusion.
March 16, 2009... Byline: Allison Retka A state appellate court has upheld an insurance policy exclusion that significantly reduces payout if the insured obtained workers' compensation benefits for his injury. In a case of first impression, the Missouri...

Husch Blackwell, with offices in Missouri, lets go 17 attorneys, 45 staff.
March 16, 2009... Byline: Heather Cole Husch Blackwell Sanders is letting go 17 attorneys and 45 staff members firmwide, citing performance and consolidation. The cuts are not being made for economic reasons, Co-Chairman David Fenley said in a phone...

HIPAA changes included in stimulus law.(Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act)
March 16, 2009... Byline: Correy E. Stephenson/Dolan Media Newswires In addition to making changes to COBRA and the tax laws, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 also included changes to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act....

Federal judge in Kansas City issues restraining order in Guy's snacks case.
March 16, 2009... Byline: Heather Cole A federal judge in Kansas City this month made permanent a restraining order in a trademark lawsuit over Guy's snack food brands. The March 6 order keeps customer payments routed to Kansas FlyBy Capital, a company...

Missouri Court of Appeals rules sanctions were abuse of discretion in divorce case.
March 16, 2009... Byline: Stephanie Maniscalco A trial court went too far in a divorce case when it struck a husband's pleadings, prevented him from presenting evidence and limited his cross examination, the Missouri Court of Appeals has held. The...

Watch out for the legal malpractice claim: with a weak economy, suits against lawyers likely to rise.
March 16, 2009... Byline: David Knopf Statistics show that lawyers who take cases outside their specialties traditionally run a greater risk of being sued for malpractice. That doesn't bode well for 2009, as industry observers say poor economic...

Discord of appeals: Missouri appellate courts free to disagree, some attorneys want more uniformity.
March 16, 2009... Byline: Allison Retka Springfield attorney Richard D. Bender had two appellate opinions on his desk as he readied an appeal for a client trying to regain her driver's license. At issue was the state's implied consent law for a blood...

Missouri jurors being asked about the economy.
March 16, 2009... Byline: Will Connaghan Layoffs, budget tightening and other cost-saving measures have become as commonplace in the legal community as in the rest of the country. Economic conditions may also have played an important role in the...

Verdicts & settlements March 16, 2009: St. Louis jury clears Boy Scouts in premises liability case.
March 16, 2009... Byline: Angela Riley A St. Louis jury has cleared the Boys Scouts of all wrongdoing in a lawsuit against the organization after a boy was bitten by a snake at a Boy Scouts' campground. In September 2003, Luke Pecoraro and his parents,...

Verdicts & settlements March 16, 2009: jury awards $2.5M to injured woman.(Missouri)
March 16, 2009... Byline: Scott Lauck A Jackson County jury awarded $2.5 million to a woman who suffered lifelong injuries in a car accident. The award to Adrienne Garrison Wayman, of Grain Valley, compensates her for injuries she suffered in a 2005...

Verdicts & settlements March 16, 2009: parties work out $909,003 settlement.(Missouri)
March 16, 2009... Byline: Cathy Kingsley The parents of a minor killed in an accident in Lee's Summit reached a settlement with the driver charged with causing the accident. On Aug. 3, 2008, Corey Stuck, 17, was driving his 2002 Honda CBR600F4i...

Verdicts & settlements March 16, 2009: blockbuster hit with $2 million verdict.(Missouri)
March 16, 2009... Byline: Anne C. Vitale A St. Louis jury returned a $2 million verdict in favor of a Blockbuster employee claiming that two fellow employees lied or withheld information related to an alleged armed robbery, causing plaintiff to spend 134...

Verdicts & settlements March 16, 2009: business not liable for president's crash on way to work.(Missouri)
March 16, 2009... Byline: Anne C. Vitale A Cass County jury found a Missouri small business not liable for the actions of its president, who was involved in a head-on collision with a Federal Express driver while driving to work. The jury rejected the...

Verdicts & settlements March 16, 2009: slip-and-fall case settles for $825,000.(Missouri)
March 16, 2009... Byline: Anne C. Vitale A retail manager injured in a slip-and-fall accident on a shopping mall's icy parking lot has reached an $825,000 global settlement of her Buchanan County case against the mall owner and the contractor it hired for...

Verdicts & settlements March 16, 2009: settlement reached over personal injury claim.(Clay County)
March 16, 2009... Byline: Angela Riley A woman has reached a $2.45 million settlement in her case against a commercial vehicle operator that injured her in a car accident. In August 2005, the woman, 54 at the time, was driving in Clay County. A truck...

Commentary: when private conduct becomes public record.(Missouri)
March 16, 2009... Byline: Maridee F. Edwards Failure to pay an employee as promised, conviction of crimes ranging from driving while intoxicated to conspiracy and fraud, failure to file income tax returns, providing false information in a loan application...