Miscellaneous

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...

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 [...

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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.

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