Zel Fischer

The case involved Kim Cantrell's appeal of the Labor and Industrial Relations Commission's denial of permanent partial disability benefits for her husband Carl Cantrell's work-related shoulder and wrist injuries sustained while employed by Baldwin Transportation, Inc. The court affirmed the denial of benefits. The Commission determined that no permanent partial disability had accrued before the employee's death from unrelated cancer because he had not reached maximum medical improvement, as his treating physician had recommended surgery and treatment was ongoing. The court held that the Commission, as fact-finder, could disbelieve the claimant's medical experts, and under the workers' compensation statute, accrued benefits require that the right to compensation exist as a matter of fact prior to death.

labor & employment

This case involved Terry Blair's appeal from his bench-trial convictions on six counts of first-degree murder and consecutive life-without-parole sentences for the 2004 killings of six women in Kansas City. Blair challenged the sufficiency of the evidence, certain trial-court findings, and the admission of his statements to police on the ground that officers had failed to preserve an audio-visual recording of his interrogation. The court affirmed the judgment, holding that the evidence—including the defendant's own 911 calls identifying the victims and crime scenes—was sufficient to support the convictions, that the challenged findings had record support, and that neither the Missouri nor federal constitution required recording of custodial interrogations. The court further noted that a new state statute mandating such recordings did not provide for exclusion of unrecorded statements as a remedy.

criminal lawprocedure