LEBEN , J. The City of Edwardsville, Kansas, opted into the Public Employer-Employee Relations Act in 1999. Doing so gave the City's employees a specific right to negotiate with their employers over conditions of employment. See State Dept. of Administration v. Public Employees Relations Bd., 257 Kan. 275 , 292, 894 P.2d 777 (1995). In August 2013, the City voted to opt out of the Act, which is allowed under K.S.A. 75-4321(c). The statute provides that a public employer covered by the...
LEBEN , J. Kirk Wilson was convicted of the murder of Kurt Boldridge based in part on the testimony of John Goodpasture, who said he witnessed the murder. But the district court later set aside Wilson's conviction and ordered a new trial after it concluded that his trial attorney had provided representation below constitutionally required minimum standards. The State has appealed, but the facts found by the district court after 2 days of evidence support its conclusion that Wilson's...
BUSER, J. While driving under the influence of alcohol, Miles E. Theurer caused a head-on collision which killed Elizabeth Young and Michael Stanley. In keeping with a plea agreement, Theurer pled no contest to two counts of involuntary manslaughter while driving under the influence of alcohol. Under the Revised Kansas Sentencing Guidelines Act (RKSGA), K.S.A. 2013 Supp. 21-6801 et seq., the district court was required to impose presumptive sentences of imprisonment. Instead, the district...
STANDRIDGE , J. Amy Sanchez, individually and as next friend of her son, Austin Sanchez (Plaintiffs), sued Unified School District No. 469 (USD 469); Kerry Brungardt, the Lansing Middle School principal; and two students and their parents seeking damages allegedly resulting from the students' bullying of Austin. Eventually, the only claim that remained was Plaintiffs' claim of negligent supervision against USD 469 and Brungardt. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of...
LEBEN, J. When Rakestraw Brothers, LLC, wanted to appeal the tax valuation of its oil lease by Kingman County, it hired Kenton Hupp, a petroleum engineer, to handle the appeal. Hupp filed a notice of appeal on Rakestraw Brothers' behalf with the small-claims division of the Court of Tax Appeals. The Court of Tax Appeals dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction, concluding that the notice of appeal had to be signed either by a member or officer of Rakestraw Brothers or by a licensed...
LEBEN, J. Amanda L. Grotton pled guilty to the rape and sexual exploitation of her 4-year-old daughter based on a video — that she alleged her boyfriend forced her to make — depicting Grotton inserting her fingers and dildos into her daughter's vagina. Grotton was sentenced to two concurrent life sentences without the possibility of parole for 25 years and to a concurrent 6-month sentence for obstructing a police officer's official duty during her arrest. In Kansas, many criminal sentences —...
LEBEN, J. Five taxpayers who appealed tax valuations to the Court of Tax Appeals saw their appeals dismissed by that body because their appeal notices had been signed by non-attorneys. In addition, even though the Court of Tax Appeals ultimately concluded that it had no jurisdiction to hear the appeals, it ruled in some of the cases that the contractual agreements between the taxpayers and those they hired to represent them before the Court of Tax Appeals (an attorney and a tax-appraisal firm)...
STEGALL, J. After a full trial, David Scott Morrison was ousted from public office. Because we find that the undisputed facts of this case do not, as a matter of law, satisfy the criteria for judicial ouster contained in K.S.A. 60-1205, we reverse the decision of the lower court and remand with directions that judgment be entered in Morrison's favor, thus reinstating him to his public office. FACTS Morrison was elected to the Prairie Village City Council in 2008 and re-elected in 2012....
ARNOLD-BURGER , J. Michael and Janet Novy (the Novys) own land subject to an oil and gas lease held by Woolsey Energy Corporation (Woolsey). Woolsey has refused to drill for either oil or gas on their land for over 30 years because Woolsey has determined, based on its own engineering study, that any well would not produce oil or gas in commercial quantities and the cost would significantly exceed any benefit. The Novys argue that Woolsey has breached its implied duty to develop the land...
LEBEN, J. Patrick Muir is an adult resident of a long-term-care facility, and he qualifies for Kansas Medicaid assistance. Under state and federal Medicaid law, a certain amount of his monthly income from disability payments is protected income that he can keep, but the rest of his income is deemed "available income" that he must pay toward his care before Medicaid will pay the rest of the costs. See 42 U.S.C. 1396a(a)(17) (2006); K.A.R. 30-6-53(3) (2009). Muir challenges a state agency...
HILL, J. Parole officer Tony Marquez appeals his 10-day suspension from his job with the Kansas Department of Corrections. As a classified state employee, Marquez is subject to the rules of the Kansas Civil Service Act, K.S.A. 75-2925 et seq. If classified employees appeal their suspensions to the Civil Service Board, the Act requires the appointing authority to show that these employees were adequately counseled on the nature of their work deficiencies unless they had received two prior...
HILL, J. Everything in our world moves. This means the pollutants and poisons produced by a century of oil refining rarely stay in one place, safely secured in some snug unseen underground cell. Instead, such noxious compounds slowly migrate, leaching from one substratum to another. No neighbor is safe from this march of toxins. These moving subsurface fields of pollution, euphemistically called "plumes" by some, are dangerous for these feathers are toxic. Fortunately, what is done by human...
ARNOLD-BURGER, J. In February 2012, Lancelot Joshua Wilburn and a companion were stopped by two Overland Park detectives at Oak Park Mall. Suspecting criminal activity, the detectives detained the two men and confiscated their cell phones. A bizarre sequence of events unfolded from this detention, resulting in an intercepted phone call, four arrests, the search of a fraudulently rented Kia, and the discovery of a large amount of evidence tying Wilburn to a fraud ring. But because the...
SCHROEDER, J. Tallgrass Prairie Holdings, LLC (Tallgrass) appeals the Kansas Court of Tax Appeals' (COTA) 2011 valuation of Tallgrass' multitenant office complex (the Property) built in 2002. The Property has a prime location, and the building is also equipped with a large surgical suite leased by one of the tenants. Tallgrass seeks a fair and reasonable valuation for the property based on current market values in compliance with K.S.A. 2013 Supp. 79-1460. Originally, Tallgrass' appeal to COTA...
ARNOLD-BURGER, J. Samuel S. Imler was involved in a bar fight and, when the Topeka police officer arrived and arrested him, he refused medical treatment. However, the police officer took him to Stormont-Vail Hospital for treatment. He remained in custody until his release after posting bond the next day. Stormont-Vail Hospital and Cotton O'Neil Clinic (collectively, the Hospital) brought suit against Imler for his hospital care in the amount of $3,825.20. Imler did not dispute the amount of...
McANANY, J. In February 2000, Daric Smith, seeking to represent a class of Kansas retail purchasers of cigarettes (Plaintiffs), commenced this action against several tobacco companies (Defendants) in the Seward County District Court, alleging they conspired to fix the wholesale price of cigarettes in violation of the Kansas Restraint of Trade Act (KRTA), K.S.A. 50-101 et seq. Defendants are: Altria Group, Inc., formerly Philip Morris Companies, Inc. (Altria); Philip Morris USA, Inc., a...
MALONE, C.J. Donald D. Base, Jr., appeals the denial of his workers compensation claim. Base alleged that his lower back was injured in a "series of events, repetitive use, cumulative traumas or microtraumas" as a maintenance worker at Raytheon Aircraft Company (Raytheon). The administrative law judge (ALJ) denied Base's claim for payment of medical expenses he incurred for surgical treatment, finding that he failed to prove that he suffered personal injury in a series of accidents or that his...
ARNOLD-BURGER, J. Michael Chubb is an involuntary patient in the Kansas Sexual Predator Treatment Program at Larned State Hospital. On appeal he contends that the district court erred in summarily dismissing his petition filed under K.S.A. 60-1501. Chubb alleges four errors on appeal. First, he contends that his liberty interests were infringed when his brother was restricted from visiting Chubb at the facility. We find that Chubb has no liberty interest in a visit from his brother and even if...
HILL, J.: When Byron Funk died intestate 14 years after his divorce from Glenda Funk (now known as Culver), his former employer paid the proceeds from his retirement account to Glenda because she was still the named beneficiary of the account. Contending Glenda had no proper claim to this retirement account because of their divorce, Byron's estate sued Glenda seeking return of the proceeds on theories of breach of contract and unjust enrichment. The district court granted summary judgment to...
BRUNS, P.J. Robert E. and R. Gay Barker (Barkers) appeal from the decision of the Court of Tax Appeals (COTA) entering summary judgment against them and in favor of Neosho County (County) on the Barkers' 2011 tax protest appeal. Robert Barker leased an oil and gas interest on land owned by his parents in 1983, and his parents retained a 3/16th royalty interest from the oil and gas that Robert produced. When Robert's mother died in 2009, the land passed to the Barkers as joint tenants by a...
