As reported in the Winona Daily News over the weekend, a jury in the Hennepin County District Court courtroom of Judge Bruce Peterson awarded a plaintiff represented by Robert J. Hajek $410,000 in compensatory damages, $1 million in punitive damages, against Donald Dean Budd, a former pastor at Winona’s McKinley United Methodist Church.  Budd was represented by Timothy Waldeck. Plaintiff had gone to her pastor to navigate the challenges of hard … Continue reading →

Contributor Sara Peterson writes in: AT&T Mobile filed a notice of appeal this week with the Minnesota Court of Appeals in the dispute over their proposed 450-foot cell tower that would be visible from portions of the BWCA.  AT&T attorneys apparently plan to argue that the Minnesota Environmental Rights Act (MERA) does not preserve views from within the wilderness area to points outside, and may not apply to scenic and esthetic resources… Continue reading →

…nk’s surprise, not only did it fail to win summary judgment but the trial court awarded summary judgment to the defendants who had not even moved for summary judgment.   This week the Minnesota Court of Appeals (Hudson, Peterson, Schelhas) reversed and awarded U.S. Bank summary judgment, including an award of attorneys’ fees. The unambiguous language in the limited-recourse provision provides that distributions would be credited first… Continue reading →

Back in late 2008, Derrick Riddle appears to have thought he would be able to score some serious cash by proposing that he would facilitate a bribe of Thomas Petters’ trial judge for Petters’ criminal case. There were more than a few problems with the scheme, not the least of which was that, at the time of his proposal, no judge had been assigned.  On this basis, Riddle’s defense counsel raised the defense of impossibility.  Mi… Continue reading →

…legislation targeted at shifting the model and changing the incentives.  The MPPOA took very strong exception to his testimony.  There was an exchange of letters thereafter (see here and here) (unsolicited suggestion to Chief Peterson: consider a less florid font for a hardly florid subject matter?). The Rochester Post-Bulletin coverage is here. The role of economic self-interest in decision-making is not generally challenged when laid bare.  It&… Continue reading →

Employer believes its executive is stealing and fires her.  Later, employer sues executive for the misappropriated funds.  She answers, denying the charges, and making a demand that the employer advance the fees she is obliged to pay her lawyer for her defense, pursuant to Minnesota corporate statutes in defending the action (see, e.g., Minn. Stat. § § 302A.521, 317A.521 (for Minnesota Business Corporation Act and Minnesota Nonprofit Corporatio… Continue reading →

… “roughly similar to [to being hit by] a ‘professionally-thrown baseball.’”) The issue in the case is whether the Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, the police officers involved, specifically Officers Lucas Peterson, Ernster and unnamed officers “A-J,” deprived Kelly of his constitutional rights or were they just trying to do their job in the face of an unruly anarchic crowd. Kelly survived defendants’ motions… Continue reading →

…w Ulm on behalf of alleged abuse victims.  And the Court went on to rule that no such obligation had been alleged, affirming summary judgment in favor of the Diocese. The Minnesota Court of Appeals (Judges Larkin, Wright, and Peterson, in an opinion by Larkin) refused to go as far as the Wisconsin Supreme Court in a similar case. While clearly sympathetic to plaintiffs’ claims, the Court concluded that any remedy the plaintiffs might have w… Continue reading →