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Navigating New Landscapes in Debtor Creditor Law: Select Provisions of the Missouri Commercial Receivership Act Compared to Federal Bankruptcy Law
Get PDFTwo momentous legislative overhauls dealing directly with debtor-creditor relations were enacted in the latter half of the 2010s. First, in 2016, the Missouri General Assembly enacted the Missouri Commercial Receivership Act. This act, signed into law by Governor Jeremiah “Jay” Nixon on July 13, 2016, constitutes a significant overhaul of Missouri’s statutory mechanism empowering the circuit courts of the state to appoint receivers for the collection and preservation of a financially distressed debtor enterprise’s assets. Prior to the enactment of Missouri Commercial Receivership Act, creditors, debtors, and interested third parties were guided only by three sparse statutory provisions dating to the 19th century and over 150 years’ worth of common law glosses from Missouri courts on the law of receivership
Multiparty Joinder and Venue: How Missouri is Acting Against Historic Procedural Law Principles in an Effort to Curb Forum Shopping
Get PDFMissouri has a problem. St. Louis City has become such a haven for plaintiffs to achieve easy victories with large awards that Missouri courts are now considered the second-worst forum by businesses for litigation.1 State ex rel. Johnson & Johnson v. Burlison attempted to fix this problem by requiring stricter application of joinder and venue statutes. But, in doing so, the Missouri Supreme Court and Legislature are acting against the historical and philosophical underpinnings of procedural law. Rather than trying to fix the substantive issues for why plaintiffs would rather bring their cases in this state, this decision instead makes it harder for any and all plaintiffs to join in a lawsuit, even if it is most efficient to do so. Missouri is treating its symptoms, not curing its disease. By choosing the easy way out and abandoning the historical development of procedural law, Missouri residents may find it highly difficult or impossible to resolve their disputes arising in a modern world
Cleaning Up and Cashing Out: Using Financial Incentives to Increase Missourians Use of Solar Energy and Decrease Missouri’s Dependence on Imported Coal
Get PDFClimate change is one of the biggest threats to the human species. Unlike other historical threats to species, this threat is caused by humans themselves. Climate change (a product of a rise in average global temperature due to carbon emissions) is causing extreme weather patterns, droughts, mass migrations, among other catastrophic consequences. The state of Missouri is particularly guilty of carbon emissions. Missouri has one of the dirtiest energy grids in the nations. If Missouri residents were to switch from fossil fuel-generated electricity to residential solar energy systems, there could be a drastic reduction in Missouri’s carbon footprint. The Missouri government can incentivize its residents to make the switch by making solar energy systems and installation exempt from sales and use taxes. Providing performance premiums for residents who produce an excess amount of energy with their solar systems could also serve as a strong incentive to switch from fossil fuels to solar energy
Use of Multiple Stream Temperature Logger Models Can Alter Conclusions
Get PDFRemote temperature loggers are often used to measure water temperatures for ecological studies and by regulatory agencies to determine whether water quality standards are being maintained. Equipment specifications are often given a cursory review in the methods; however, the effect of temperature logger model is rarely addressed in the discussion. In a laboratory environment, we compared measurements from three models of temperature loggers at 5 to 40 °C to better understand the utility of these devices. Mean water temperatures recorded by logger models differed statistically even for those with similar accuracy specifications, but were still within manufacturer accuracy specifications. Maximum mean temperature difference between models was 0.4 °C which could have regulatory and ecological implications, such as when a 0.3 °C temperature change triggers a water quality violation or increases species mortality rates. Additionally, precision should be reported as the overall precision (including a consideration of significant digits) for combined model types which in our experiment was 0.7 °C, not the ≤0.4 °C for individual models. Our results affirm that analyzing data collected by different logger models can result in potentially erroneous conclusions when \u3c1 °C difference has regulatory compliance or ecological implications and that combining data from multiple logger models can reduce the overall precision of results
Consent Decrees as Emergent Environmental Law
Get PDFConsent decrees – the unheralded workhorses of regulatory law – play a critical role in environmental law. The bulk of major environmental disputes at the federal level are resolved through consent decrees lodged under judicial supervision, and key federal environmental statutes and policies directly require settling parties to use consent decrees to resolve their claims. These proposed decrees, however, typically receive only a restrained judicial review that does not yield a formal judicial opinion on the full merits of the agreement. Parties, in fact, will frequently insist that the decree will not involve an admission of liability or any conclusions of law. As a result, consent decrees operate as the dark matter of environmental law – an unseen supporting medium that surrounds and supports the statutory and regulatory directives that function within it, but which leaves few marks of its own. These decrees play a similar role in several other legal fields, including antitrust, consumer protection, class actions, labor, and bankruptcy
The Unappealing Nature of Guilty Plea Agreements: Johnson’s Restrictions on Appeals of Intellectual Disabilities
Get PDFIn 2008, Ronald Johnson was charged with the murder of Luke Meiners, a St. Louis attorney. On the advice of his appointed defense counsel, Johnson pleaded guilty to the charge of first-degree murder to avoid the death penalty. Johnson was ineligible, however, for the death penalty because he was intellectually disabled. After his conviction, Johnson appealed for postconviction relief. Johnson received a mental evaluation, which concluded he was competent to stand trial. Thus, the court upheld his guilty plea. In an appeal to the Supreme Court of Missouri, Johnson argued that his conviction should be set aside because he received ineffective assistance of counsel and was coerced into accepting his plea. The Supreme Court of Missouri avoided the merits of Johnson’s appeal because of its technical deficiencies. The court further confused the established standards for competency to stand trial and intellectual disability in a way that will affect the rights of intellectually disabled individuals