OPINION PER CURIAM. On Wednesday, November 17, 2010, Tom Emmer, the Republican Party's candidate for Governor of Minnesota, filed a petition under Minn.Stat. 204B.44 (2008), alleging that the Minnesota State Canvassing Board was about to commit an error in certifying the correctness of the results of the November 2, 2010, general election. Petitioner alleged that local election officials had failed to properly determine the number of ballots to be counted on election night and that, as a...
OPINION PER CURIAM. Petitioner Harlan Clark filed this action seeking to remove the name of Bert Pexsa from the 2010 general election ballot as a candidate for State Representative, House District 11B, on grounds that the Douglas County Auditor erred in accepting for filing Pexsa's affidavit of candidacy without a nominating petition. Clark asserts that the Auditor further erred in allowing Pexsa to amend his affidavit of candidacy after the close of the candidate filing period. Because we...
OPINION MEYER, Justice. Appellant Milton K. Sanders was convicted of the shooting death of Maurice Wilson and the wounding of Laverne David Roberts and Cordell Watts. A detailed statement of the facts describing the crimes that form the basis of this appeal is set forth in Sanders' direct appeal at State v. Sanders (Sanders I), 598 N.W.2d 650 , 652-53 (Minn.1999). Briefly stated, Sanders was indicted by a grand jury on one count of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted first-...
OPINION STRAS, Justice. This case presents a question of statutory interpretation to determine whether Minn.Stat. 117.225 (2008) permits fee owners to seek the discharge of a portion of an easement previously acquired by the State of Minnesota through condemnation proceedings when the easement "is not being used for the purposes for which it was acquired." Appellant Dennis Larson contends that a liberal construction of section 117.225 is required because it is a remedial statute that...
OPINION DIETZEN, Justice. In this consolidated action, appellant KKE Architects, Inc. (KKE), seeks to foreclose its mechanic's lien, and respondents First Choice Bank and Riverview Muir Doran, LLC, seek to foreclose their mortgages on property that is part of a housing project located in Hennepin County. Respondents moved for partial summary judgment, seeking a determination on the validity of the mechanic's lien as well as the priority of their mortgages. The district court entered judgment...
OPINION ANDERSON, G. BARRY, Justice. This appeal involves a foreclosure priority dispute between a mortgagee and two mechanic's lien holders in the context of Torrens property. The arguments of the parties center on when a mortgage is "of record" under Minn.Stat. 514.05 (2008), an issue of first impression in Minnesota. That statute requires a mortgage to have been "of record" at the time a mechanic's lien attaches in order to have superior priority to the lien. Respondent lien-holders...
OPINION PAGE, Justice. On August 1, 2007, the Interstate 35W (I-35W) highway bridge spanning the Mississippi River in Minneapolis collapsed killing 13 people and injuring many others. To replace the bridge, one of the most heavily traveled in the state, respondent Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) elected to use the relatively new design-build best-value bidding process to choose the new bridge's design and contractor. See Minn.Stat. 161.3410-.3428 (2008). Respondent...
OPINION DIETZEN, Justice. A Scott County jury found appellant Michael Anderson guilty of first-degree premeditated murder, second-degree intentional murder, and second-degree manslaughter—culpable negligence, for the shooting death of Katherine Olson on October 25, 2007. The district court sentenced Anderson to life in prison without possibility of release, and Anderson filed a direct appeal. We affirm. On October 26, 2007, the Savage Police Department received a phone call that a discarded...
OPINION MEYER, Justice. This case addresses the scope and operation of a school district's obligation under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) to provide disabled students an equal opportunity to participate in extracurricular and nonacademic activities. Here, the parents of a disabled student in Independent School District No.12, Centennial (the School District), respondent, requested that the student's Individual Education Program (IEP) team consider...
OPINION PER CURIAM. This case raises a challenge under Minn. Stat. 204B.44 (2008) to the name by which a candidate for Minnesota Secretary of State seeks to appear on the 2010 general election ballot. On May 25, 2010, Daniel Mark Severson filed an affidavit of candidacy as the Republican-endorsed candidate for Minnesota Secretary of State. The affidavit of candidacy requires the candidate to state his name "as it will appear on the ballot" and requires the candidate to state that "this is...
OPINION ANDERSON, PAUL H., Justice. A Hennepin County jury found Angel Morales guilty of second-degree felony murder for the death of Victor Mesa-Ortiz during the commission of an aggravated robbery. The Hennepin County District Court convicted Morales of this crime and sentenced him to 150 months in prison. At trial, the State alleged that Morales's accomplice, Felipe Vega-Lara, shot and killed Mesa-Ortiz when Mesa-Ortiz resisted an attempt to rob him at gunpoint. The district court granted...
OPINION ANDERSON, PAUL H., Justice. An Anoka County jury found Demetrius Devell Dobbins guilty of first-degree premeditated murder for the death of Quintin Roderick Lavender. We affirmed Dobbins's conviction on direct appeal in 2006. In 2009 Dobbins filed a petition for postconviction relief and the postconviction court denied the petition. Dobbins now appeals the denial of his petition, arguing that he is entitled to postconviction relief because (1) he received ineffective assistance of...
OPINION PAUL H., Justice. The Hennepin County Grand Jury indicted 16-year-old Brian Flowers on two counts of first-degree premeditated murder, Minn.Stat. 609.185(a)(1), 609.05, subd. 1 (2008), and two counts of first-degree murder while committing or attempting to commit aggravated robbery, Minn.Stat. 609.185(a)(3), 609.05, subd. 1 (2008), for causing the deaths of Katricia Daniels and Robert Shepard. A jury found Flowers guilty of all four counts. The Hennepin County District Court...
OPINION MEYER, Justice. Stafon Edward Thompson was charged with two counts of first-degree premeditated murder and two counts of first-degree murder while committing aggravated robbery for the deaths of Katricia Daniels and her 10-year-old son, Robert Shepard. Thompson was found guilty by a jury of all four counts and sentenced to two consecutive life terms without the possibility of release. Thompson directly appealed his convictions, claiming the district court erred in admitting certain...
OPINION MEYER, Justice. Respondent Kasey Vo Cao was found guilty of third-and fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct, in violation of Minn.Stat. 609.344, subd. 1(d), and 609.345, subd. 1(d) (2008). During the State's closing argument, the prosecutor stated that Minnesota law did not require corroboration of the complainant's testimony for the jury to find Cao guilty of criminal sexual conduct. The court of appeals held that this statement was prosecutorial misconduct in the form of plain...
OPINION ANDERSON, G. BARRY, Justice. A jury found Edgar Rene Barrientos-Quintana guilty of four counts of first-degree murder and four counts of attempted first-degree murder for an October 11, 2008, drive-by shooting in which one young man died and another was injured. The district court records reflect that on each of the first-degree-murder counts, the court sentenced Barrientos-Quintana to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The district court records also reflect that on...
OPINION PAUL H., Justice. Sarah Erdman worked for Life Time Fitness, Inc., from June 1, 2005 until January 31, 2006. Life Time classified Erdman as a salaried employee exempt from the overtime requirements of the Minnesota Fair Labor Standards Act (MFLSA). See Minn.Stat. 177.21 (2008). At the end of 2005, Life Time made deductions from two of Erdman's paychecks in order to recover bonus overpayments it made to Erdman earlier in the year. Erdman objected to the deductions and commenced an...
OPINION ANDERSON, G. BARRY, Justice. This case involves the level of privilege from defamation liability applicable to subordinate government bodies such as watershed district boards. All four parties are board members of the Middle Snake Tamarac Rivers Watershed District in northwestern Minnesota. While serving as board members, Loren J. Zutz and Elden J. Elseth conducted an investigation regarding alleged improprieties in the watershed district's payroll practices. Fellow board members...
OPINION ANDERSON, G. BARRY, Justice. This case arises from appellant Capella University's employment termination of respondent Elen Bahr. Bahr brought an action in district court claiming that her employment termination was in retaliation for opposing discriminatory practices and that such retaliation violated the Minnesota Human Rights Act (MHRA), Minn.Stat. 363A.01-.41 (2008). Capella moved to dismiss Bahr's suit for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, Minn. R. Civ....
OPINION GILDEA, Chief Justice. On April 21, 2004, Robert Larson was indicted for first-degree murder in violation of Minn.Stat. 609.185(1) (2008), aiding and abetting first-degree murder in violation of Minn.Stat. 609.05 (2008), second-degree murder in violation of Minn. Stat. 609.19, subd. 1(1) (2008), and aiding and abetting second-degree murder in violation of Minn.Stat. 609.05, for his role in the death of Thomas John Cady, Jr. Robert Larson and his sister, Jamie Larson, were both...
