Patricia L. Cohen

Pamela Demars v. Gary Buntenbach

Missouri Court of Appeals · 2015-12-08

The case involved a post-divorce contempt dispute between former spouses Pamela Demars and Gary Buntenbach over the division of marital MasterCard stock under their 2013 dissolution judgment. That judgment awarded each party half of Demars’s vested and unvested shares; Buntenbach received 96 unvested shares, which split 10-for-1 and vested in early 2014, producing 960 shares that Demars refused to transfer. The trial court found Demars in contempt and ordered her to convey the 960 shares; the Missouri Court of Appeals affirmed. The appellate court held that the stock split was merely a change in form of the same marital asset, so enforcing the original equal-division order required Demars to deliver the post-split shares rather than amending the judgment.

family lawproperty

Ezell Roberts v. State of Missouri

Missouri Court of Appeals · 2015-11-03 · cited 5×

Ezell Roberts was convicted of multiple counts of statutory rape and sodomy against his step-daughter and later filed a timely pro se Rule 29.15 motion for post-conviction relief alleging ineffective assistance of trial counsel. His appointed counsel filed an amended motion six days after the deadline set by Rule 29.15(g), but the motion court held an evidentiary hearing and denied relief on the merits without addressing the late filing. The Missouri Court of Appeals reversed, holding that an untimely amended motion can constitute abandonment by post-conviction counsel, which triggers a duty for the motion court to conduct an independent inquiry into whether abandonment occurred. Because no such inquiry took place, the case was remanded so the motion court can determine whether to adjudicate the original or amended motion and proceed accordingly.

criminal lawprocedure

State of Missouri ex rel. Attorney General Christ Koster and The Missouri Petroleum Storage Tank Insurance Fund Board of Directors v. ConocoPhillips Company and Phillips 66 Company, and Cory Wagoner

Missouri Court of Appeals · 2015-11-03

Cory Wagoner sought to intervene in a state lawsuit filed by Missouri’s Attorney General and the Petroleum Storage Tank Insurance Fund against ConocoPhillips and Phillips 66, claiming the companies had wrongfully obtained money from the Fund; Wagoner had filed his own parallel suits in Greene County asserting similar claims as a taxpayer and Fund contributor. The trial court denied his motion to intervene, later approved a settlement between the State and Phillips 66, and Wagoner appealed that approval. The Missouri Court of Appeals dismissed the appeal for lack of standing. The court held that Wagoner was never made a party because his intervention motion was denied, and his notice of appeal identified only the settlement judgment, not the earlier intervention ruling. Under Missouri rules, an appellant may seek review only of the judgment or order specified in the notice, so Wagoner had no standing to challenge a decision in a case to which he was not a party.

business & regulatoryenvironmentprocedure

Thomas L. Beauchamp, II, Dana Buckley, Craig Sullivan and Professional Firefighters of Eastern Missouri, International Association of Firefighters Local 2665 v. Monarch Fire Protection District, Robin Harris, Jane Cunningham and Steve Swyers

Missouri Court of Appeals · 2015-10-13

The case involved a dispute between the Monarch Fire Protection District and its board and a firefighters' union local, along with three top-ranked candidates on a promotional list, over whether the district was required under the parties' collective bargaining agreement to fill a vacant fire captain position by promoting one of those candidates before the list expired. The trial court granted the union's petition for a writ of mandamus and request for a permanent injunction, ordering the district to make the promotion. The Missouri Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the union failed to show a clear, unequivocal ministerial duty to promote under the agreement's management-rights and promotion provisions, that the candidates had an adequate alternative remedy through the CBA's grievance process, and that there was insufficient evidence of irreparable harm or the lack of an adequate remedy at law to support either form of extraordinary relief. The court remanded the case for further proceedings.

labor & employmentprocedure

Arizon Structures Worldwide, LLC v. Global Blue Technologies-Cameron, LLC, Global Blue Technologies, Inc., Global Blue Technologies-International, LLC, and Global Blue Technologies-USA, LLC, and David K. Wills and James E. Salmon, and Johnson Marcraft, Inc., Jan Ligas and Ron Scharf

Missouri Court of Appeals · 2015-10-06

In this Missouri Court of Appeals case, Buyers (affiliated aquaculture companies) appealed the trial court's denial of their motion to compel arbitration in a breach-of-contract suit brought by Sellers (designers and manufacturers of air-supported structures) over the sale of six custom domes pursuant to an April 2013 non-disclosure/financing/supply agreement and later budget quotations. The court affirmed the denial, ruling that the quotations' dispute-resolution clause (Paragraph 14) superseded the earlier agreement's arbitration provision. That clause required any action to be brought in St. Louis County Circuit Court (or, at Sellers' option only, by arbitration) and contained language rejecting conflicting prior terms, thereby establishing the parties' intent for a judicial forum as the default.

business & regulatoryprocedure

Nathaniel A. Robinson v. State of Missouri

Missouri Court of Appeals · 2015-09-15 · cited 6×

Nathaniel Robinson appealed the denial of his Rule 29.15 post-conviction motion, which sought to vacate his convictions for involuntary manslaughter and child abuse resulting in the death of his three-year-old son D.V. in 2007. He claimed his trial counsel was ineffective by eliciting prejudicial testimony during cross-examination of a witness and by deciding not to call a defense expert, Dr. Godfrey, who had reviewed the medical evidence. The Missouri Court of Appeals affirmed the motion court's denial of relief. It held that counsel's cross-examination choices fell within reasonable strategy and that declining to call Dr. Godfrey was likewise strategic, because the expert agreed the death resulted from blunt-force trauma and offered only an "outside possibility" of accident that could have bolstered the prosecution's case rather than unequivocally supporting the defense.

criminal lawprocedure

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Patricia L. Cohen

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