Michael A. Wolff

The case concerned a wrongful death medical malpractice lawsuit filed on the final day of the three-year statute of limitations, initially naming a hospital, a university medical center, and unidentified John and Jane Doe defendants. After the limitations period expired, the plaintiff amended the petition to substitute specific physicians and their employer for the Doe parties. The court ruled that the amendment did not relate back to the original filing date under Missouri Rule 55.33(c) or common-law misnomer principles, because the initial petition failed to adequately describe or notify the actual defendants. As a result, the claims against the newly added defendants were barred by the statute of limitations.

proceduretorts & liabilityhealthcare

In Carothers v. Carothers, the Missouri Supreme Court addressed a civil contempt judgment against Pamela Carothers for failing to pay child support arrears from a 1993 dissolution decree, resulting in her incarceration after she appeared pro se at the show-cause hearing. The court held that the contempt order became final and appealable only upon her actual incarceration in March 2010, making her April 2010 notice of appeal timely, and that the judgment was invalid because the record contained no waiver of her right to counsel. The core reasoning was that a stayed commitment warrant does not render a civil contempt order final for appeal purposes, and due process requires an affirmative record showing of any waiver of counsel in such proceedings before incarceration may occur.

family lawprocedurecivil rights

The case concerned whether a newly formed neighborhood association could enforce liens and collect unpaid property assessments on Steven Veal's buildings under covenants running with the land. The original DeBaliviere Place Association had been dissolved by the secretary of state in 1992 for failing to file annual reports; a successor association with the same name was incorporated in 2003 and received a formal assignment of all rights and duties from the former entity in 2006. The circuit court granted summary judgment to the new association, allowing foreclosure on the liens and awarding over $70,000 in assessments, interest, and fees. The court concluded that the assignment was valid because the dissolved corporation retained authority to transfer its contractual rights, the covenants remained enforceable against the properties, and the new association could collect the assessments after the assignment.

propertyprocedurebusiness & regulatory

The case involved George Biggs, who was convicted of child abuse under section 568.060 for repeatedly spanking his seven-year-old son with a belt, causing extensive bruising on the child's buttocks and thighs as punishment for the boy's inability to control his bowels due to a medical condition. Biggs appealed his conviction, arguing that the trial court improperly admitted the child's out-of-court statements to his mother, a police officer, a forensic interviewer, and his godmother under section 491.075, claiming violations of the confrontation clause and improper bolstering of testimony. The court conducted a pretrial hearing and found sufficient indicia of reliability in the statements to allow their admission as substantive evidence, and determined that the child was available for cross-examination at trial even though he could not recall the events. The Missouri Supreme Court affirmed the conviction, holding that the statute was constitutional as applied, the statements were properly admitted, and the evidence was sufficient to support the jury's verdict.

criminal lawfamily lawprocedure

The case involved a dispute over proper venue for a lawsuit filed by Auto Owners Insurance Company against Columbia Mutual Insurance Company and Biegel Refrigeration in Jackson County, Missouri. The defendants moved to transfer the case, arguing that Columbia Mutual resides only in Boone County where its registered office is located. The court held that Missouri law still allows venue in any county where an insurance corporation maintains an agent for its business, as the 2005 statutory changes did not alter the common law rule for insurance companies, and thus ordered the case returned to Jackson County.

procedurebusiness & regulatory

Gerald Kivland sued his surgeon, Dr. Gaines, and Columbia Orthopaedic Group for medical negligence after spinal surgery allegedly caused paralysis from the waist down and severe ongoing pain; his wife also brought a loss-of-consortium claim. After Kivland's suicide eight months later, his widow and daughter amended the suit to add a wrongful death claim asserting that the post-surgical pain caused the suicide. The trial court struck the plaintiffs' expert witness, who would have testified that the suicide resulted from the pain and was not voluntary, then granted partial summary judgment on the wrongful death claim, treating the suicide as an intervening cause as a matter of law. The Missouri Supreme Court reviewed whether expert testimony on the involuntariness of the suicide could be admitted under the standards of section 490.065 and whether the trial court abused its discretion in excluding it.

torts & liabilityprocedure

In Hoskins v. State, the defendant appealed the denial of his Rule 24.035 post-conviction motion, raising for the first time a claim that the sentencing court lacked statutory authority to impose consecutive prison terms for his prior suspended sentences after he violated probation. The Missouri Supreme Court held that appellate courts cannot review such claims under a plain error standard because Rule 24.035 explicitly requires all claims to be raised in the post-conviction motion or they are waived, with no exceptions for alleged jurisdictional or statutory authority issues. The court reasoned that prior cases allowing plain error review in this context were incorrect, as the rule provides no basis for bypassing the waiver requirement in appeals from post-conviction proceedings, even though the defendant had preserved a different claim about improper plea negotiations that he abandoned on appeal.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involved Dwight Laughlin, who was convicted in 1993 by a Missouri state court for burglary and property damage committed at a U.S. post office in Neosho after Missouri had ceded jurisdiction over the federal property. Laughlin challenged the state court's subject matter jurisdiction in post-conviction proceedings, though the issue was not raised on direct appeal, and more than fifteen years later he sought habeas corpus relief. The Missouri Supreme Court granted the writ and ordered Laughlin discharged, holding that the state court lacked authority to try the case because Article I, section 8, clause 17 of the U.S. Constitution and Missouri's cession statutes (sections 12.010 and 12.020) place such offenses under exclusive federal jurisdiction. The court reasoned that subject matter jurisdiction cannot be conferred by consent, waiver, or failure to appeal, and that a conviction by a court without jurisdiction is void and subject to collateral attack.

criminal lawfederal powerprocedure

The case involved David Garcia, who was indicted in 2002 for a 1998 shooting in Missouri but not arrested until 2009 after living openly in Chicago using his real name and social security number. Garcia moved to dismiss the charge, arguing that the state's delay violated his Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial under the Barker v. Wingo factors. The circuit court overruled the motion, finding no actual prejudice to Garcia. The Missouri Supreme Court granted a writ of mandamus, holding that the seven-year delay, caused by the state's negligence in failing to use available information to locate Garcia despite his open residence, denied him the right to a speedy trial even without a specific showing of prejudice. The court emphasized that the length of the delay and the reason for it weighed against the state.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involved Ryan Seeler, who was convicted of first-degree involuntary manslaughter as a class B felony after striking and killing a construction worker while driving intoxicated on Interstate 64 in a construction zone. The trial court allowed the state to amend the charging document after presenting its evidence, changing the allegation from leaving the highway's right-of-way to driving into a lane closed to traffic. The Missouri Supreme Court reversed the conviction, holding that the statute defining the offense is not unconstitutionally vague but that the amendment prejudiced Seeler's ability to prepare his defense since he had prepared to contest the original factual theory. The court remanded the case for further proceedings.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involved the City of Kansas City, which owns and operates an airport and resells electricity purchased from a utility to its tenants and subtenants at a higher rate after metering their usage. After years of paying sales taxes on these transactions, the city stopped remitting them in 2007, prompting the director of revenue to issue assessments; the administrative hearing commission sided with the city, ruling that it was not engaged in the business of rendering a taxable service at retail under section 144.020. The Missouri Supreme Court reversed, holding that the city is subject to sales tax because its activities meet the statutory definition of engaging in business by providing electricity for a gain or advantage, and the tax is imposed on the city's sales to tenants rather than on its own purchases.

taxesbusiness & regulatory

The case involved a lawyer, Carl Smith, who was convicted of indirect criminal contempt by a jury for statements in a writ petition filed in the court of appeals, in which he accused a circuit judge and prosecutor of bias, impropriety, and conspiracy in connection with a grand jury proceeding. The trial court sentenced Smith to 120 days in jail based on the court's inherent contempt authority, after which Smith sought habeas corpus relief challenging the conviction. The court reviewed whether the statements degraded the court's authority or impeded justice under precedents like State ex rel. Chassaing v. Mummert and In re Snyder, considering First Amendment protections for zealous advocacy in pleadings. The decision turned on whether the lawyer's words, made in the course of representing clients, met the threshold for criminal contempt without evidence of actual interference or knowing falsity.

criminal lawfree speechprocedure

The case involved Adolph Belt, who received a $100 citation from the City of Springfield for running a red light captured by a traffic camera and challenged it in an administrative hearing before a hearing examiner, who found him liable. Belt sought a trial de novo in circuit court, but the court dismissed the request for lack of jurisdiction. The Missouri Supreme Court held that the administrative proceeding was void because section 479.010 requires violations of municipal ordinances to be heard and determined only in divisions of the circuit court, not through administrative processes. As a result, Belt's penalty was vacated. The ruling turned on the statutory mandate that such cases cannot be adjudicated administratively.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involved Antoine Terry's 2008 conviction for first-degree statutory rape of a 12-year-old girl, where the prosecution's case relied heavily on the victim's testimony that Terry was the only person she had sex with that summer and the father of her child. After trial, DNA testing excluded Terry as the biological father, prompting his motion to remand the case for consideration of this newly discovered evidence suggesting possible perjured testimony. The court addressed whether to remand despite procedural rules limiting new-trial motions and the state's argument that the evidence was immaterial or that other corroboration existed. It reasoned that remand was appropriate to evaluate the impact of the DNA results on the conviction and avoid a potential miscarriage of justice. The court granted the motion to remand to the circuit court for further proceedings on the new evidence.

criminal lawprocedure

These consolidated cases involved two convicted sex offenders who challenged the application of new Missouri statutes: one restricting residency within 1,000 feet of schools or child-care facilities (section 566.147) and the other imposing Halloween-related conduct requirements like not distributing candy and posting signs (section 589.426). Both offenders had been convicted and sentenced before the respective laws took effect. The Missouri Supreme Court held that the statutes were unconstitutionally retrospective under article I, section 13 of the Missouri Constitution as applied to these individuals because they imposed new obligations or disabilities based solely on prior convictions. The Court reversed the judgment against F.R. and affirmed the dismissal of charges against Raynor.

criminal lawcivil rights

Vanessa Severe was convicted of driving while intoxicated as a persistent offender, elevating the offense to a class D felony, based on two prior alcohol-related offenses including a municipal DWI guilty plea that resulted in a suspended imposition of sentence. While her appeal was pending, the court decided Turner v. State, which held that municipal DWI pleas resulting in suspended impositions of sentence cannot be used for enhancement. The court reverses the felony conviction and remands for resentencing, holding that the statute's requirement to prove persistent offender status before submitting the case to the jury prevents the state from offering evidence of additional prior offenses on remand.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involved writ proceedings brought by the Missouri Public Defender Commission challenging trial judges' appointments of public defenders in three matters, where the appointments violated the commission's rules limiting caseloads to ensure effective representation. The disputes arose after judges in St. Francois and Boone Counties appointed defenders contrary to rules denying services to defendants who had previously retained private counsel or to offices designated as unavailable due to excessive probation violation cases. The Missouri Supreme Court reviewed the constitutional right to counsel under the Sixth Amendment and state rules, along with the history of the public defender system and its funding shortfalls. It reasoned that the commission has authority to adopt caseload rules to fulfill the obligation of providing competent counsel, that judges cannot override these rules through appointments, and that the system must balance resources to maintain both constitutional rights and the functioning of criminal justice.

criminal lawcivil rights

This case concerned whether a purported will could be admitted to probate in Missouri when it was not presented to the probate division within one year of the decedent's death, as required by statute. The surviving spouse, through her conservator, petitioned for a writ of mandamus after the probate court admitted the will and appointed the named executor despite the delay. The Missouri Supreme Court made permanent its preliminary writ of mandamus, directing the probate court to vacate its orders admitting the will, to appoint the spouse as administrator, and to declare that the decedent died intestate. The core reasoning was that Missouri statutes strictly limit a decedent's ability to control post-death asset distribution to valid wills presented within the one-year statutory deadline, after which the estate must be administered under intestacy rules.

propertyprocedure

In Merriweather v. State, the defendant was convicted of forcible sodomy based solely on the testimony of the complaining witness after the state failed to disclose her prior theft convictions despite pretrial discovery requests and database searches by both sides. The motion court vacated the conviction under Brady v. Maryland and Missouri Rule 25.03, concluding that the nondisclosure deprived Merriweather of a fair trial even though the failure was inadvertent. On appeal, the Missouri Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the state has the burden to demonstrate a diligent search for witness criminal records and that it did not meet that burden on the record presented, with resulting prejudice because the convictions would have affected the jury's assessment of the witness's credibility in a case turning entirely on conflicting accounts with no physical evidence.

criminal lawprocedure

This case involves the State Board of Registration for the Healing Arts seeking to discipline neurosurgeon Dr. Faisal Albanna for alleged unprofessional conduct and repeated negligence in treating six patients, with the Administrative Hearing Commission sustaining charges only as to patients SW and CW. The board imposed five years of probation requiring informed consent and second opinions for future surgeries. The court interpreted section 334.100.2 to distinguish individual tort negligence from regulatory standards but held that Albanna's multiple failures—such as inadequate diagnostics, improper surgical choices, lack of informed consent, and documentation errors across two patients—met the statutory definition of repeated negligence and harmful conduct. The decision rested on evidence of substandard care causing patient harm and the statutory incorporation of repeated negligence as a basis for discipline.

healthcareproceduretorts & liability