New Supreme Court and Court of Appeals Opinions

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. Even though a 1st District judge granted Plaintiff’s ex parte request for an extension of the service deadline because the parties were in settlement discussions. Another held constitutional the civil penalty portion of the deferred judgment provisions of the criminal code.

Linn County Associate Juvenile Judge Susan Flaherty asked that one of the Court of Appeals cases be forwarded to the attorneys practicing in juvenile court. That case discussed the impropriety of the same attorney being appointed guardian ad litem and attorney for a 12-year-old girl who didn’t want her mother’s parental rights terminated, though the guardian ad litem determined that termination was in her best interests. Interesting stuff.

The Holidays

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

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

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. I can’t say that I disagree with her opinions, but that’s not really the issue, is it? She has a right to think what she wants, but why not do what seems to be best for everyone, including her offspring?

Clients are fun.

Return from Vacation

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 into the thick of it. I even went to a Planning & Zoning meeting tonight. Now, since I was up at 3:15 central time this morning, I think I might sleep in a little bit tomorrow. But I’ll really be back on the horse once I get to the office around…I guess I haven’t thought that far ahead, yet.

It’s good to be back in the cold.

On a different note, new Court of Appeals decisions today.

Working On Vacation

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). They were pretty interesting for the most part. The case dealing with living restrictions for sex offenders left some room for future challenges on other grounds. The other criminal case allowed the introduction of evidence even though the deputies failed to follow the correct procedures under Missouri’s fresh pursuit law before bringing the defendant back to Iowa (I can’t say I disagree with the reasoning). The estate case had it all: a family torn apart by money, land, sawmill equipment and machinery, a discussion of what happens to the assets of a corporation after its articles of incorporation expire…riveting.

Anyway, I apologize for the late posting of the court schedules for today. I’ll try to do better, but, I’m in Florida, so maybe I’ll just go outside in my shorts, instead.

New Office of Professional Regulation

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 the Board of Examiners of Shorthand Reporters.” The Board of Law Examiners and administration of testing and licensing of court interpreterd will follow within the next year.

It seems to me that Justice Ternus’ court has made a lot of changes lately. But maybe it’s just that I didn’t subscribe to the email updates before the last few months. When I count up the changes, I find that there were 19 rule changes in 2005, 16 in 2006 and 22, so far, in 2007 (I didn’t count all the rules changed, just how many changes are listed on the website). Not really a big variance, I guess.

Juvenile Court…All Day

I spent all day today in a contested CINA adjudication/disposition hearing. Not exactly what I enjoy, but I get paid for it, so I probably shouldn’t complain. That’s one of the great things aout the practice of law. We get to do all sorts of undesireable things for even less desireable clients, but we get paid for it. I guess I shouldn’t insinuate that I don’t like the client I was with today. I actually do like him. And the identity of the other parent created the possibility that there would be fireworks. It wasn’t a completely joyless experience, but it certainly could have been better.

Modification

I’ve been working on an appeal brief all day, so I have modification of dissolution decrees on the brain. In modification actions, there are different standards for modifying a custody determination and modifying a vistitation schedule. With visitation, all that is required is  change in circumstances, but to modify a custody detrmination one has to show a substantial change in circumstances.

Our appeal argument is that the stipulation in our case set out a schedule of visitation for Petitioner while giving primary physical care to Respondent (our client). The District Court didn’t go for that argument and required our client to show a substantial change in circumstances. We have some case law, so we’ll see how it works out.

By the way, you can now find Johnson County schedules on this site.