Kelly Thompson

In this case, James Brian Snow appealed a domestic violence order (DVO) issued against him by the Henderson Circuit Court Family Division in favor of his wife, Lorna Cooper Snow, during their ongoing divorce. The DVO arose from allegations that Snow violated prior agreed orders by making unwanted contact, walking around the property, brandishing a weapon while threatening his wife and children, destroying security cameras she had installed, and other conduct that caused her fear. The Kentucky Court of Appeals affirmed the DVO, ruling that the trial court properly found by a preponderance of the evidence under KRS 403.720 and 403.750 that domestic violence had occurred and was likely to occur again. The appellate court held that the trial court's findings were supported by substantial evidence, including the wife's testimony and evidence of repeated order violations, and were not clearly erroneous or an abuse of discretion.

family law

The Kentucky Court of Appeals consolidated two appeals by the Commonwealth from a Franklin Circuit Court order and judgment in Simeyon J. Johnson’s criminal case. Johnson, who pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter after committing the offense in 2023, had sought a declaratory ruling in his criminal case that an amended version of KRS 439.3401 (effective July 2024) did not apply to him, so that he would face only 20% parole eligibility rather than the 85% required for violent offenders under the new statute. The trial court agreed, finding an ex post facto violation and conditioning acceptance of the plea on the old eligibility rules. The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded, holding that the trial court lacked authority to decide the issue because the Department of Corrections—not a party to the criminal case—is responsible for violent-offender classifications, and challenges to parole eligibility must be brought in a separate declaratory action against the DOC under longstanding precedent such as Mason v. Commonwealth and Hoskins v. Commonwealth. The court distinguished Rushin v. Commonwealth on the ground that procedural and jurisdictional objections had been properly raised here.

criminal lawprocedure

Gregory Seth Thomas appealed the Daviess Circuit Court’s decree dissolving his marriage to Louvinia Mae Thomas, arguing that a 2014 Indiana prenuptial agreement and its 2021 postnuptial amendment were unconscionable and unenforceable. The agreements entitled Louvinia to $2,000 monthly support indefinitely, plus all property, if the marriage ended due to Gregory’s infidelity, which the amendment defined expansively to include nearly all contact with other women. The Kentucky Court of Appeals affirmed the circuit court’s rulings that the agreements were valid and enforceable. Applying Indiana law, which favors premarital agreements entered voluntarily without fraud, duress, or unconscionability, the court found the contracts reflected mutual assent, were drafted with Gregory’s participation and counsel, and contained terms the parties had freely bargained for; it rejected claims that the indefinite duration or broad infidelity trigger rendered them unenforceable or unconscionable.

family law

In this case, DaShawn Johnson appealed the Henderson Circuit Court’s denial of his CR 60.02 motion, in which he sought to correct his sentence on the grounds that his aggregate 30-year prison term—20 years for first-degree trafficking in a controlled substance and first-degree persistent felony offender, imposed consecutively to a separate 10-year sentence for possession of a handgun by a convicted felon—violated the sentencing caps in KRS 532.110(1)(c) and KRS 532.080(6)(b). Johnson had previously been convicted following a bench trial and jury trial, and the Kentucky Supreme Court affirmed his convictions and rejected the same sentencing-cap argument on direct appeal in 2018. The Court of Appeals affirmed the circuit court’s denial of relief. The court reasoned that CR 60.02 cannot be used to relitigate claims already decided on direct appeal, citing Gross v. Commonwealth and the law-of-the-case doctrine, which bars reconsideration of issues finally adjudicated in the same case.

criminal lawprocedure

In this case, the Commonwealth appealed two Montgomery Circuit Court orders in the prosecution of Kendall Daugherty for attempted murder after he shot William Harris. The trial court had granted Daugherty’s motion to invoke the spousal testimony privilege under KRE 504(a) to bar his wife from testifying at trial, despite her having been called and questioned by both sides about the incident during two pre-trial hearings; the court also set a trial date while the privilege appeal was pending. The Kentucky Court of Appeals reversed and remanded, holding that Daugherty waived the privilege under KRE 509 by voluntarily disclosing a significant part of the privileged matter through his wife’s pre-trial testimony. The court further explained that the privilege applies only to testimony truly adverse to the party-spouse, not to all testimony, and that the pending appeal rendered the trial-scheduling issue moot.

criminal lawprocedurefamily law

The case arose after Steven Dewey McDowell died in custody at the Three Forks Regional Jail following an incident in which he left his medical observation cell, repeatedly ignored commands to return or enter a shower, and was sprayed multiple times with oleum capsicum (OC) by deputy jailers Ross, Jones, and Conkright to gain compliance; the Estate sued the jail employees in their individual capacities for negligence, excessive force, and related claims, alleging improper use of OC and failure to provide medical evaluation. The Lee Circuit Court denied the defendants’ motion for summary judgment, finding that violations of jail policies rendered the conduct ministerial and thus unprotected by qualified official immunity, while also identifying a factual dispute on causation. On appeal, the Kentucky Court of Appeals reversed in part, holding that Ross, Jones, and Conkright were entitled to qualified official immunity because their use of OC to control a noncompliant inmate constituted discretionary acts performed in good faith and within the scope of their authority under the standard set forth in Yanero v. Davis. The court dismissed the remaining claims of error as not properly before it on this interlocutory appeal.

civil rightsproceduretorts & liability

The case arose from a divorce and child timesharing dispute in Fayette Circuit Court, where Cindy Adams testified about taking a child to urgent care and introduced a photograph of a prescription bottle as evidence. After her ex-husband presented information suggesting the testimony was false and the document was altered or AI-generated, the trial court issued a show cause order, held hearings, and found Adams in criminal contempt for lying under oath and submitting fabricated evidence, sentencing her to 45 days in jail. On appeal, the Kentucky Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that the matter was not moot due to collateral consequences and that any unpreserved claims did not amount to palpable error. The court reasoned that Adams received adequate due process through notice, multiple hearings, and the opportunity to consult criminal counsel; that her conduct obstructed justice and disrespected the court even without violating a specific order; and that no separation-of-powers violation or requirement for a formal Boykin colloquy existed because the proceeding addressed contempt rather than criminal charges.

family lawcriminal lawprocedure

The case involved Adnan Aljawhar’s lawsuit against State Farm for uninsured motorist coverage arising from a December 23, 2022 car accident in which he was a passenger; State Farm had issued PIP checks to Aljawhar and the driver on December 30, 2022. The Jefferson Circuit Court initially denied State Farm’s motion to dismiss on statute-of-limitations grounds but later granted a motion to vacate that order and dismissed the complaint as untimely. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that the denial order was interlocutory and therefore subject to revision at any time under CR 54.02. It further held that, under KRS 304.39-230(1) and controlling precedent, the two-year limitations period began when the PIP checks were issued, making December 31, 2024 the presumptive deadline; because that date and the following day were court holidays, the complaint filed on January 3, 2025 was one day late.

proceduretorts & liabilitybusiness & regulatory

The case involved Carl and Charito Corvin’s appeal from the Hardin Circuit Court’s denial of their motion under the Kentucky Uniform Public Expression Protection Act (KUPEPA) to dismiss counterclaims filed by the Hardin County Board of Education. The underlying dispute concerned competing offers to purchase a 16-acre parcel containing the historic William Bush House, subject to the Board’s right of first refusal from a family trust; after the Corvins offered to buy and preserve the house, the Board matched the price without preservation terms, leading the Corvins to sue the trust for breach of contract and related claims while naming the Board as a defendant. The Board responded with counterclaims, including abuse of process, alleging the suit was filed to force it to pay more or agree to preserve the house. The Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of the KUPEPA motion, holding that the Board’s allegations sufficiently pleaded a prima facie case of abuse of process by showing the Corvins sought collateral advantages not authorized by their claims against the trust. The court found it unnecessary to resolve whether a real-property exception to KUPEPA applied, as the counterclaims survived the motion on the merits.

propertyproceduretorts & liability

In Paul Lehecka v. Nash Building Supply and Remodeling, Inc., Lehecka and Wisconsin Auto Supply, Inc. appealed a Daviess Circuit Court order granting summary judgment to Nash on claims stemming from 2017 concrete and paving work on two Kentucky properties, including disputes over unpaid invoices, mechanic’s liens filed by Nash, counterclaims for negligence, fraud, defamation, and malicious prosecution, and related third-party claims. The Kentucky Court of Appeals affirmed the summary judgment in full. The court held that Lehecka was judicially estopped from pursuing the claims because he had valued his counterclaim at $0 in a 2021 Chapter 7 bankruptcy and later transferred his interest in WAS, and that Lehecka and WAS failed to raise genuine issues of material fact, notably by providing no expert testimony on the quality or value of Nash’s work. It further reasoned that challenges to the liens were untimely after the properties were sold, the liens were paid in full without objection, and they were released, while the malicious prosecution claim failed because the underlying proceeding did not terminate in the appellants’ favor and probable cause existed for filing the liens.

business & regulatorypropertyproceduretorts & liability

Elizabeth K. Doyle sued Alexander N. Aube in Bourbon Circuit Court for breach of contract, unjust enrichment, and constructive trust, alleging the parties had a written 2020 agreement to split profits from the sale of jointly owned property on Violet Road in Lexington and reinvest them equally in a new Bourbon County home. She claimed she contributed her $42,000 share of the $84,000 profit toward the $275,000 purchase, giving her an equity interest, but Aube refused to recognize it or pay her share upon a future sale. The circuit court granted Aube’s motion to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim. The Kentucky Court of Appeals reversed and remanded, holding that the complaint sufficiently alleged all elements of a breach-of-contract claim—a valid contract, Doyle’s performance, Aube’s material breach, and resulting damages—when viewed under the required standard of liberally construing the allegations in the plaintiff’s favor and taking them as true.

propertyprocedure

John Ault was indicted in Fayette Circuit Court on multiple counts of sexual abuse, sodomy, and incest involving his step-granddaughter (then a young child) and his adult biological daughter (as a child in the 1990s). He proceeded pro se with hybrid counsel, filed numerous pretrial motions including a request to sever the charges involving each victim, then entered a conditional guilty plea to one count of first-degree sexual abuse and one count of incest in exchange for a recommended 10-year sentence. Shortly afterward he moved to withdraw the plea, claiming hybrid counsel had not adequately advised him about the length of the appellate process. The circuit court denied the motion and imposed the sentence; on appeal the Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that the plea was knowing, intelligent, and voluntary, that Ault could not reasonably fault counsel after choosing self-representation, and that the trial court did not abuse its discretion or err in its other rulings.

criminal lawprocedurefamily law

Syed Ahmed sued his homeowners insurer, AIG, after a FedEx truck damaged a brick archway on his property in 2018. AIG offered to pay roughly $85,914 (after deductible) to repair the archway by reusing matching bricks from a hidden retaining wall on the property, but Ahmed rejected the offer and sought coverage for far more expensive repairs using new or relocated bricks. A jury found that AIG had not fully met its policy obligation to use materials of “like kind and quality,” yet awarded Ahmed only $100,301 in damages. The trial court denied Ahmed’s motion for a new trial, and the Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that the verdict was supported by the evidence of repair costs and that the trial court properly excluded Ahmed’s testimony on speculative living expenses absent expert support.

propertyprocedure

In this consolidated appeal, Krishaun Mays and Brooke L. Kennedy challenged the Franklin Circuit Court’s denial of their post-conviction motions following guilty pleas to charges stemming from the 2016 robbery and murder of Jared Banta. Mays sought relief under RCr 11.42, claiming ineffective assistance of counsel for failing to withdraw his plea, complete a competency evaluation, or pursue appeals, while Kennedy sought relief under CR 60.02 to reduce her first-degree robbery complicity conviction to second-degree and lessen her sentence. The Court of Appeals affirmed both denials. It held that Mays’s claims were refuted by the record, including his voluntary plea colloquy and his own expert’s competency finding, and that no further hearings were required. For Kennedy, the court ruled her motion untimely after four years and that her knowing acceptance of the plea offer precluded relief under CR 60.02, with any ineffective-assistance claim improperly raised outside RCr 11.42 procedures.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involved a father appealing a Jefferson Circuit Court order that returned custody of his infant daughter to him after she had been temporarily placed with her paternal grandfather due to the mother's drug use and the child's resulting health issues. The father challenged the constitutionality of KRS 620.027, which grants a grandparent the same standing as a parent in custody determinations when the child resides with the grandparent in a stable relationship in dependency, neglect, or abuse cases, arguing it violated his Fourteenth Amendment rights. The Court of Appeals dismissed the consolidated appeals as moot. Because the child had already been returned to the father's custody, there was no active controversy, and any ruling on the statute's constitutionality would be advisory. The court found that exceptions to mootness did not apply, as the issue was narrowly limited to specific statutory circumstances and could be litigated if the grandfather later sought custody.

family lawcivil rightsprocedure

The case concerned a dispute between siblings Merica Martin and James Jones over the distribution of their late mother Renee Marie Jones’s Single Investment Accounts. The mother’s living trust directed a 50-50 split of those accounts between Martin and Jones, but separate transfer-on-death forms sent half directly to Martin and half into the trust; an amendment later removed the trust restriction on Jones’s share without updating the forms. After the mother’s death, Martin (as trustee) transferred the trust portion and sought to split it equally, prompting Jones to sue. The Laurel Circuit Court granted partial summary judgment to Jones, ordering distribution of the trust-held funds to him, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. The court held that the mother’s unambiguous intent, as expressed in the trust, controlled and required an equal division, which was achieved by applying the TOD designations while directing the trust’s share entirely to Jones.

family lawproperty

Majed Kharboutli sued Mike Ritchie, Vanguard Home Innovations, and Four Seasons Solar Products, LLC, alleging that Ritchie fraudulently induced him to enter a 2017 sunroom construction contract using deceptive statements and materials supplied by Four Seasons, and that the defendants violated Kentucky’s Consumer Protection Act (KRS 367.170) by misusing his $38,000 deposit. The Boone Circuit Court granted Four Seasons Solar’s CR 12.02(f) motion and dismissed it from the case, finding it was not a party to the contract, had no direct involvement, and was protected by a contractual waiver. The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded, holding that the complaint’s allegations—if proven—could establish that Ritchie acted as Four Seasons’ agent rather than an independent contractor, that any fraud would void the waiver, and that vicarious liability for a Consumer Protection Act violation was therefore possible.

business & regulatoryproceduretorts & liability

Cameron Sherlock appealed his Fayette Circuit Court convictions for second-degree strangulation and second-degree persistent felony offender status, which arose from an altercation at his home during a 2022 birthday party in which he allegedly placed his hand on a teenage guest’s neck and impeded his breathing. The circuit court sentenced him to an enhanced six-year term after a jury trial that featured testimony from the victim, witnesses, and investigating officers. On appeal, Sherlock challenged inconsistent statements by the victim and detective regarding whether he had squeezed the victim’s neck, as well as the constitutionality of the strangulation statute. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that any inconsistencies were properly explored and resolved at trial and that the constitutional claim was not preserved because Sherlock neither raised it nor notified the Attorney General before entry of the final judgment, as required by KRS 418.075.

criminal lawprocedure

Christopher Claxton appealed from an Oldham Circuit Court order denying his motion to amend his 2013 sentence for first-degree escape, felon in possession of a handgun, and third-degree assault (as amended from persistent felony offender first degree). He argued that the Department of Corrections had wrongly calculated his parole eligibility by treating the three concurrent ten-year terms as requiring six years of service before eligibility, contrary to the two-year total he believed he had been promised at the time of his guilty plea. The Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s denial of the motion. The court held that the underlying judgment was correct in ordering the sentences to run concurrently and could not be amended; any dispute over the Department of Corrections’ application of 501 KAR 1:030 Section 3(4)—which requires consecutive parole treatment for escape-related offenses regardless of the sentencing order—must instead be pursued through an original action against the Department.

criminal lawprocedure

This case involved an appeal by T.W.R.F., the biological father of minor child D.W.A.F., from a Marshall Family Court order terminating his parental rights. The Cabinet for Health and Family Services petitioned for involuntary termination after the child was adjudicated abused or neglected in 2023 due to the father's substance abuse, domestic violence, and criminal activity, and after he failed to complete court-ordered services including drug treatment, parenting classes, batterer's intervention, and random screens. The Kentucky Court of Appeals affirmed the termination order. It held that the family court correctly found all requirements of KRS 625.090 met: the child had been previously adjudicated abused or neglected, the Cabinet filed the petition, termination was in the child's best interests, and one or more statutory grounds were proven by clear and convincing evidence, with those findings supported by substantial evidence in the record.

family law