Miscellaneous

New Beginnings

Posted on October 05, 2009
Oops, I did it again. As of October 1, I am again flying solo. I hope it works out a little better this time. As a result of this change, I hope to turn over a new leaf with organization. For the blog, this means posting about new decisions more frequently and staying on top [...

No Fault means No Fault and Outlandish Title Loan Rates Live On

Posted on July 24, 2009
Two new Iowa Supreme Court opinions today. One dealing with family law and one with title loans. I prefer these topics to Workers’ Compensation, so I guess I’m pleased with my reading material this morning. In Re Marriage of Cooper – Mr...

Supreme Court of Iowa, 7/17/09 ? Back on the Horse

Posted on July 17, 2009
Kind of a slow day, so I decided to read and actually comment on the new supreme court cases posted today. American Eyecare v. Department of Human Services – American Eyecare performed services for patients on Medicaid. DHS, as the agency in charge of Iowa’s Medicaid program, determined that American Eyecare had upcoded, or overbilled, Medicaid [...

New Court Fee Schedules

Posted on May 27, 2009
Governor Culver signed last night Senate File 478, which made a number of changes that will help the budget situation for the Court system. The big thing is the increases in the filing fees for a number of different cases. Those can be found here. A longer list of the changes can be found here...

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Iowa Supreme Court 4/17/09

Posted on April 17, 2009
Four new opinions, today, but one was a per curiam opinion based on one of the others. I think I brought this up before, but I have to think that, when two similar cases are decided at the same time, one gets full treatment and the other a per curiam opinion, the defendant who got [...

Final thoughts on Varnum v. Brien

Posted on April 03, 2009
So this case covers a lot of ground. It has a lot of good quotes and I thnk it’s well-reasoned. I’m disappointed that the Court didn’t make a determination as to whether sexual orientation is a suspect or quasi-suspect class. I think it may muddy the waters somewhat, but they may not have wanted to [...

Varnum v. Brien

Posted on April 03, 2009
Varnum v. Brien I’m going to blog while I read. The first thing I notice is that, after the first page, which lists the parties and their attorneys, there are five pages of all the amici. A lot of lawyers made a lot of money on this case. Best attorney name I found: Tobias Barrington Wolff [...

Property Taxes and the Iowa Supreme Court

Posted on February 17, 2009
So I’m catching up on my Iowa Supreme Court cases, today. I just finished Soifer v. Floyd County Board of Review and, have to say, I respectfully disagree with the Court’s decision, and the precedent it followed. It appears clear to me that the assessed value of a property should be based solely on the property’s [...

Wow. It has been a while.

Posted on February 09, 2009
So I have not posted anything other than court schedules for quite some time. I guess I’ve had a lot going on. The most notable I suppose is the arrival of my son Max. He is now about a month old and I’m finally starting to settle back in to work...

Dissension in the Court?

Posted on October 10, 2008
It’s been a couple…few?…weeks since I posted here. I probably shouldn’t be doing it now, but I need a break. So, new Iowa Supreme Court opinions today. Here goes: Harper v. Pella Corporation- This is interesting. Harper sued Pella for injuries from fall at a home owned by Pella...

Let?s get ready to rumble!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted on September 26, 2008
So, we’ll jump right in with the first new Iowa Supreme Court case of the day: Capital Promotions, LLC v. Don King Productinos, Inc.- Capital sued Don King for intentional interference with a contractual relationship. Capital repped a fighter named Tye Fields who was a Des Moines native, lived in Missouri for some time and lived [...

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeere?s Justice!

Posted on September 12, 2008
Four new opinions from the Supreme Court of Iowa, today, and we’ll jump right in: Iowa Supreme Court Attorney Disciplinary Board v. Buchanan - An attorney proposed to settle a civil matter by offering to destroy evidence of alleged forgery by the opposing party and agreeing that his client would not cooperate in any forgery prosecution against [...

I?ll take the Supreme Court Opinions with a side of onion rings

Posted on September 05, 2008
So, four new opinions from The Supremes today. I was getting disappointed until I read the last one, but we’ll get to that. Holstein Electric v. Breyfogle - An injury to a wrist should be compensated as an injury to the arm, rather than one to the hand...

Mea Culpa

Posted on September 03, 2008
It appears that, in my less than exhaustive search of last week’s Court of Appeals opinions, I missed a win involving my YLD comrade in arms Andy Hosmanek. Andy, I apologize. The case is Windus v. McDonald and looks at the difference between a pure support trust and a discretionary support trust...

Court of Appeals Opinions

Posted on August 27, 2008
New opinions from the Court of Appeals of Iowa. I didn’t find anything too earth-shattering, but the opinions are located here. I did want to say congratulations to Court of Appeals Judge and former 6th District Judge Amanda Potterfield. I noticed her name as one of the considering judges in a few of the opinions...

Iowa Supreme Court mails it in

Posted on August 22, 2008
Two new opinions today. It must be vacation time. The opinions are identical per curiam opinions concerning civil commitment proceedings of sexually violaent predators. The Court disposed of all of their identical arguments in opinions decided while these two were pending...

Huzzah!!

Posted on August 13, 2008
It appears that all is well with the technology at NPET. Or, at least as well as it can be. I can actually send and receive messages now. It’s a great improvement. That also means that I’m able to receive the court schedules again. So, enjoy.

No beer and no tv make Erek something something . . .

Posted on August 11, 2008
So it’s not really a lack beer and tv I’m lamenting today. It’s my lack of email access. Actually, my partial lack of email access. We moved back into our Cedar Rapids office on Thursday. They unhooked our server to move it at around 7:15 am that morning...

Court of Appeals of Iowa

Posted on July 30, 2008
New opinions from the Court of Appeal of Iowa, today. I didn’t find too much interesting. But there was one casethat caught my eye. Our own Judge Hibbs was reversed on an order denying a motion to confirm an arbitration award. The appellant filed a motion to vacate the arbitration award, but it came after the [...

More Iowa Supreme Court Action

Posted on July 25, 2008
Two new opinions today. The first is State v. Smith (they come up with the most unique case names). Anyway, the State appealed from an order granting Mr. Smith a new trial. Mr.  Smith pled guilty and waived his right to file a motion in arrest of judgment...

My apologies?

Posted on July 22, 2008
So, I ran into Lars Anderson the other day at the Courthouse and he asked me where on this blog he could find the Court Schedules. I told him that there was a link in the top right-hand corner of the front page of the blog.  Well, I was looking at the thing today and [...

Supreme Court of Iowa, Come on Down!

Posted on July 18, 2008
Two new opinions today: State v. Shipley - Defendant who’s license is suspended for OWI test failure claimed that the admission of a certified abstract of his operational record without any foundational testimony violated a number of statutes and rules, not to mention the Confrontational Clause...

Iowa Court of Appeals Opinions

Posted on July 16, 2008
A number of new opinions today. One concerning our firm, which I’m not sure was really a win or a loss. I guess, considering we represented the appellee/cross-appellant and it was affirmed, I’ll put it in the win column. There are a number of certiorari cases, most related to Board of Adjustment action...

Mmmm?Tasty

Posted on July 11, 2008
With the caption of the case reading “The Pillsbury Company, Inc. v. Wells Dairy, Inc.“, you would expect the Iowa Supreme Court’s newest opinion to be fairly sweet. It turns out it’s a contracts case and an appeal of a grant of summary judgment, at that...

NPET in the News

Posted on July 11, 2008
Here’s a link to a New York Times story about the Postville raids. It features none other than NPET’s own Sara Smith. Here is the essay that the story is about. Interesting stuff.

I?m tired of Office 2007

Posted on July 01, 2008
So, apparently, the Court system switched over to Microsoft Office 2007 sometime around the 1st of the year. So all of the schedules I receive from Johnson County are in docx format. I have Office 2007 on my work computer, but I have a Mac at home with Office X (2004)...

Here?s the latest in Linn County

Posted on July 01, 2008
Here is the latest order concerning the flooding in Linn County. Mainly, Jones County is no longer accepting Linn County filings and there is no more faxing of signed orders. Appearently there are still some telephone issues for some of the offices.

I haven?t read any of the new opinions, but?

Posted on June 27, 2008
Here’s a funny story. I was at the Mahaska County Courthouse yesterday for a hearing. I walked in the building after lunch and thought it smelled kind of funny. As any human being is wont to do from time to time, I decided I should use the restroom before getting back to work...

Proposed changes to Iowa Rules of Criminal Procedure

Posted on June 23, 2008
I don’t know how I feel about the newest proposed changes to the IRCrimP. For most cases, I’m not sure it matters that I don’t get the occupation of the witness. If you’re getting into expert witnesses, then I think it does, but I haven’t had a criminal case yet where I would have hired [...

I can?t believe I forgot?

Posted on June 20, 2008
We got our server out of our office on Tuesday and it’s been up and running since Wednesday afternoon/night. Our contact info is still the same, though our telephone system is still not really working and is just rolling to our Williamsburg office where staff is taking messages and emailing them to us...

New info about Linn County Court operations

Posted on June 20, 2008
See the newest release here. I guess we’re getting back in business.

New Iowa Supreme Court Opinions 6/20/08

Posted on June 20, 2008
Here are the things I learned today from the Iowa Supreme Court: Easton v. Howard - Don’t drive drunk. If only for the fact that you’ll want to remember how your boyfriend left your moving vehicle while you were executing a u-turn after an argument...

Flood Update

Posted on June 16, 2008
Apparently, we still have not been able to retrieve our server. So, I’m still unable to get the court schedules, etc. I’m told we should be up and running by the end of the week, but we’ll see. I’m surprised at how busy downtown Iowa City is...

Linn County Flood Update

Posted on June 16, 2008
Here is an update of the plans for continuing courthouse business Linn County. The statewide update is here.

Flood-Related Closings

Posted on June 13, 2008
I just found this link to courthouses and other judicial branch offices that are closed. It appears to be updated when needed.

The flooding continues?

Posted on June 13, 2008
So, our office in Cedar Rapids is in what used to be the APAC Building. The power has been out there since Wednesday evening, which means we have no email or voicemail. A call to any ofour publicized telephone numbers gives you dead air. No ringing, no message saying the phone’s not working, etc...

FYI - COURTHOUSE CLOSINGS

Posted on June 11, 2008
This will come as no surprise to most of you. A call this afternoon to the Benton County Courthouse yeilded an automated message giving their normal business hours and telling people that they are currently closed and don’t know when they’ll return...

Attorneys and Disasters

Posted on June 11, 2008
It’s interesting to be involved with a firm whose main office is in downtown Cedar Rapids. We are currently trying to plan for power outages and such. If the power goes out, we lose access to our server, which means no email and no phones. All of my calls are routed through there, so that [...

New Iowa Court of Appeals opinions

Posted on June 11, 2008
Not much to look at, today. State v. Walls shows us some of those dirty tricks police officers sometimes use (see immediately previous post for some thoughts on the police), though it was harmless error to include the confession. That’s really the only case I found at all notable...

Family Ties

Posted on June 10, 2008
I have a cousin who is the police chief of a suburb of Des Moines. His brother (also my cousin, of course) got married last Saturday, so I had a chance to see the whole family. My police chief cousin likes to refer to criminal defense as the dark side, which is fine...

I think my brain needed a vacation . . .

Posted on June 09, 2008
I have been doing enough to get by lately. I think my brain just needed a vacation. My emotions, too, probably. We deal with other people’s problems all the time and don’t have the energy to deal with our own. So, I’ve been taking the time, lately, to think about my problems...

A little behind?

Posted on June 02, 2008
So, I got a little behind on all of this blog stuff. I may not have even commented on the Supreme Court opinions from last Friday, even though an astonishing 75% had something to do with municipal law. So, I apologize if there’s anyone out there who relies on my posts for information, entertainment or [...

Great event for lawyers and law students?

Posted on June 02, 2008
The Honorable Judge Russell will be speaking at a Johnson County YLD event this Friday. His topic will be tips on trial practice and courtroom procedure. Lawyers and law students are welcome to attend. More info here. Please RSVP as asked in the flyer so we have enough food...

Iowa Supreme Court

Posted on May 16, 2008
Three new opinions today. Two family law and one auto insurance. One of the family law cases comes from a split court, which we really haven’t seen much of lately. In re Marriage of Powers - A 4-3 decision vacating the Court of Appeals judgment giving primary physical care of the kids to Dad and affirming [...

Iowa Court of Appeals

Posted on May 14, 2008
There were a number of new Court of Appeals opinions released today. I looked through the summaries and found so many that I thought might be interesting. I ended up needing to shave my list a little bit so I could get some work done. There is one that touches on judicial recusal in an attorney malpractice [...

Immigration Raids

Posted on May 12, 2008
Most of us have probably heard the news about the ICE raids in Postville and, apparently, Waterloo. I haven’t seen any media coverage concerning any raids actually in Waterloo, but my sources tell me that one is taking place there, as well. I looked through a little bit of the warrant application posted here and here...

New Iowa Supreme Court Opinions

Posted on May 09, 2008
Four new opinions, today. Here are my thoughts: Iowa Supreme Court Disciplinary Board v. Jeffrey M. Ireland - Mr. Ireland’s Iowa law license was suspended for at least six months for his neglect of client matters and failure to return the clients’ papers and funds...

I am educated

Posted on May 08, 2008
Our proffesional liability insurance provider put on a free seminar today on how to avoid malpractice. It was an excellent presentation for the cost (free). I learned some new things and brushed up on old. One of the things that really caught my attention was the idea of a virtual law firm...

Termination of Parental Rights and Absentee Clients

Posted on May 07, 2008
I sat through a whole day of termination of parental rights trial yesterday. My client is the father of one of the kids and he was in federal prison for most of the child in need of assistance action. I finally met him a couple weeks ago when he showed up for an in-court review...

It?s time for more Iowa Supreme Court fun?

Posted on May 02, 2008
So, four new opinions today. One of them is per curiam and will not be published because it’s a sister case to another. My take: Cemen Tech, Inc v. Three D Industries, LLC - If you’re going to steal someone’s trade secrets, wait a while before you actually start to use them...

New Iowa Court of Appeals Opinions

Posted on April 30, 2008
Anyone interested in finding out just how childish and idiotic some adults can be should read State v. Gallimore. On appeal it was affirmed in part, reversed in part and remanded. Mr. Gallimore certainly has some valid arguments and deserves the reversal and remand, but who can blame a Court for punishing this guy? For a [...

Law Day

Posted on April 29, 2008
I had a chance to attend some of the Law Day festivities at the Johnson County courthouse today. I sat in on a discussion concerning the need for a new “justice center” in Johnson County. Some of the conversation centered on the fact that there’s a lot of public knowledge about the need for a [...

So I?m a little behind . . .

Posted on April 29, 2008
Since I don’t think there’s anyone who counts on me posting the Court schedules, I’m not going to apologize for missing a few days while I recovered from my wisdom teeth extraction. I’ll try to be better now that I’m back to work...

Ouch

Posted on April 23, 2008
So, I’m having all four of my wisdom teeth pulled tomorrow afternoon. The procedure starts at 1:30 and I can’t eat for six hours beforehand. I like to tell the story about how the dentist told me when I was 15 or so that I should consider having them out...

Calling Young Lawyers

Posted on April 22, 2008
Anyone interested in being involved in a young lawyers division of the Johnson County Bar should contact me. A small group met today and talked about the kinds of things we’d like to do. We’ll take whatever input anyone has, but we’re looking at lunch meetings for now, with speakers of interest to a broad [...

Trial Recovery

Posted on April 17, 2008
It’s been a week since I had a full-day trial. I wasn’t exactly on the ball about getting ready for it, so I was scrambling at the end. That scrambling made me put off other things that I needed to get done. So, I was way behind when I got o the office on Friday [...

Rule Changes

Posted on April 14, 2008
The Supreme Court today released changes to forms contained in the Iowa Court Rules. You can find the changes here. I haven’t taken the time to figure out what the changes are, but I’m sure they’re extremely important.

Things I learned today from the Iowa Supreme Court

Posted on April 11, 2008
Two new opinions from the Iowa Supreme Court, today. The first dealt again with a challenge to the 2000 foot living restriction for sex offenders. The second again covering what the Public Defender’s Office must pay court appointed attorneys. Here’s what I learned: Wright v...

I?m Terrible at Evidence

Posted on April 10, 2008
So, I learned something today during my trial. I’m terrible at evidence. Maybe it was the lack of sleep, but I had issues with a few items of evidence. Oh well. The trial went and I think we did OK, so I guess that’s what matters. Now comes the catching up on everything I put [...

Trial Preparation

Posted on April 09, 2008
You know, trial preparation is pretty tedious. I’m a seat-of-the-pants kind of guy and I have a hard time sitting and reviewing everything, deciding what I want to use, figuring out how to get it into the record… There’s no question that it helps to be organized, but I’ve never been an organizer and when [...

Magistrate Court

Posted on April 08, 2008
Our firm represents a number of City’s and is responsible for prosecuting traffic violations and other violations of each City’s Code of Oridinances. So, I spend plenty of time in magistrate court. Today, I was there for over three hours and presented my one case in a matter of about 10 minutes...

Iowa Supreme Court Opinions

Posted on April 04, 2008
On Fridays, we often get the pleasure of reading new Iowa Supreme Court opinions, and we are not disappointed today. We get two opinions, one a criminal appeal based on the admission of hearsay evidence and the other a family law appeal regarding the differences between joint physical care and extraordinary visitation for the purposes [...

New Iowa Supreme Court Justice

Posted on April 04, 2008
Congrats to the Honorable David Baker, currently a judge on the Iowa Court of Appeals, who has been appointed to be the next Iowa Supreme Court Justice. He has had somewhat a meteoric rise in the ranks of judges in Iowa. He was appointed to the District Bench in Linn County in 2005, then to the [...

What work am I supposed to do?

Posted on April 03, 2008
One thing that I think a lot of modern young attorneys need to think about is delegation. Coming out of law school, most of us did our own typing, all our own research, making our own copies, basically everything. When I opened my solo practice, I was doing all of those things plus general and [...

Iowa Supreme Court Opinions

Posted on April 01, 2008
The Iowa Supreme Court last week issued opinions in three new cases. Below are the keys to remember from each. 1. Iowa Supreme Court Attorney Disciplinary Board v. Adams: Depression and migraine headaches can be a mitigating factor in lawyer discipline issues, but only if the attorney suffered from them when the misconduct occurred, and only [...

New Supreme Court Justice

Posted on March 07, 2008
Congrats to a couple of corridor lawyers who are finalists for the seat that is pening on the Iowa Supreme Court. Judge David Baker of the Iowa Court of Appeals and Connie Alt from Shuttleworth & Ingersoll are two of the three finalist. I can’t say that I personally know either of them, but I [...

Justice Streit, you disappoint me

Posted on January 25, 2008
The Iowa Supreme Court released four new opinions today. One deals with expansion of nonconforming uses under a City Ordinance, one with the admission of prior bad acts in a sexual abuse trial and two (1, 2) with tax sale/redemption procedures. I have to say, I always look forward to Justice Streit’s opinions because they, from my experience, [...

For the last time, assault is a specific intent crime?

Posted on January 18, 2008
So, the Iowa Supreme Court yet again “clarified” that assault is, in fact, a specific intent crime in Iowa. Despite a number of recent cases on the issue, the seemingly exasperated Justices released an opinion today that again ruled that assault, this time in the context of dependent adult abuse, requires that the assaulting party intend to [...

State of the Judiciary and Court of Appeals

Posted on January 16, 2008
Chief Justice Ternus gave her State of the Judiciary Speech to the state legislature today. The full text and a summary of her speech are available here. She proposed changes to the Juvenile Court system and announced additions to the State’s drug court system...

Birthdays

Posted on January 14, 2008
For some reason, my birthday often ends up being a busy, difficult day. A few years ago, when I was still in law school, I got sick on my birthday. I don’t get really sick very often, but that time I did. And my wife had to be out of town for the evening, so [...

New Supreme Court Opinions

Posted on January 11, 2008
This seems to be all I blog about anymore. I’ll have to change that. Two new opinons today. One upholding the payment of meterial witness fees of $40 per day to a person who was held in jail as a material witness for 53 days. He argued that he should have gotten the equivalent of minimum [...

New Supreme Court Opinions

Posted on January 04, 2008
The Iowa Supreme Court today released two new opinions. One is interesing for the fact that it reiterates that attorneys who contract with the State Public Defender’s Office must file their fee claims within 45 days of the final disposition of each case...

New Supreme Court and Court of Appeals Opinions

Posted on December 29, 2007
Both the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals released new opinions Friday. One of the Supreme Court cases will surely give rise to a legal malpractice suit, as a personal injury lawsuit was dismissed because the original notice and petition were not served within 90 days of filing...

The Holidays

Posted on December 27, 2007
There’s nothing like getting someone out of jail for the holidays. It makes him happy, makes his wife happy, makes his kids happy. And that means they come back again. Happy Holidays everyone!

New Iowa Supreme Court Opinions Last Week

Posted on December 18, 2007
The Supreme court last week released two opinions. One concerned the dismissal of a beneficiary’s lawsuit against the trustees of his father’s trust. The other concerned a worker’s com issue. I don’t think either was particularly groundbreaking, so I won’t go into them too anymore.

Moral Client

Posted on December 13, 2007
I have a client with a tremendous moral streak. She doesn’t understand why people do things that they do and can’t get past it. It’s almost to the point where she is being unreasonable, at the expense of her children, because she can’t see the forest for the trees...

Return from Vacation

Posted on December 12, 2007
I usually have a hard time getting back into work after some time off. Today, our flight landed at 10:15 am. After the drive home, lunch, some unpacking and some ice scraping, I was on my way to the office before 2:30. Granted, I didn’t stay long, but I was there and got right back [...

Working On Vacation

Posted on December 11, 2007
I don’t think I’ve gotten the hang of this lawyer thing yet. I’m not billing nearly enough while I’m on vacation. Only 3.7 hours yesterday. I could do much better. Of course, that doesn’t include the time it took me yesterday to finish reading the latest Iowa Supreme Court cases (released Friday)...

New Office of Professional Regulation

Posted on December 05, 2007
The Supreme Court issued orders today creating the Office of Professional Regulation. According to the news release, the new office will be in charge of “the Grievance Commission, the Attorney Disciplinary Board, the Commission on Unauthorized Practice of Law, the Commission on Continuing Legal Education, the Client Security Commission, the Lawyer Trust Account Commission, and [...