Phillip’s new role will be a multifaceted one. He will be coordinating social service interventions for students and families in the district. He will also act as a liason with both private and public stakeholders with respect to the district’s community development efforts. And, in his new position, Phillip will also work with both local municipal courts and the county’s Family Court to create alternatives to incarceration for district residents who violate the parental neglect and juvenile law codes.

Phillip has been a long-time volunteer on the school district’s municipal task force as part of his community service and pro bono activity at Green Jacobson.

Interestingly, Phillip actually helped create the position he is now filling.

Four years ago, Phillip, other volunteers, and district administrators conceived of the post as a key part of their efforts to prevent students from “falling through the cracks” due to uncoordinated agency interventions.

Phillip states that he is eagerly looking forward to being part of an effort to change the dynamics of an urban school district that has the potential to be world class. Phillip credits the leadership of superintendent Dr. Stanton Lawrence as a major reason he sought out the position with the district. Phillip states that Dr. Lawrence has a comprehensive vision for the district’s turnaround and has recruited a stellar administrative and teaching staff that he is proud to join.

Green Jacobson will miss Phillip and wish him success in his new position. We are confident that the students of the Normandy School District will benefit from his attention.

Under the Missouri Non-Partisan Court Plan, an independent Appellate Judicial Commission composed of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, three lawyers elected by the members of the Missouri Bar, and three laypersons appointed by the Governor, nominate three candidates to fill open seats on the state’s appellate courts, including the Supreme Court. The Governor selects the new judge from the three nominees.

The other nominees are Court of Appeals Judge George Draper, who sits on the Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District, and Circuit Judge Michael Manners, who sits on the Circuit Court for Jackson County (Kansas City).

Governor Jeremiah “Jay” Nixon has up to 60 days to select the new judge from the three nominees.

Click here to open the trial transcript in a new browser window. Links from the announcement lead to the application forms filed by each nominee.

The transcript is in PDF format. The total transcript, including table of contents and a copy of the jury’s verdict form, is 3,350 pages long. The PDF file is approximately 30 megabytes in size.

Click here to open the trial transcript in a new browser window.

The duty of fair representation is a duty owed under federal law by unions to their members to represent the interests of the members fairly and in good faith, and is violated by arbitrary, bad faith, or discriminatory conduct on the part of the union.

The TWA pilots alleged that ALPA failed to properly advocate their interests in the merger because of a serious conflict of interest. The TWA pilots alleged that at the same time that ALPA was duty-bound to assist them in seniority integration negotiations with the American Airline pilots, ALPA was engaged in extensive, undisclosed efforts to cause the more than 11,000 American Airline pilots to become members of ALPA.

The verdict was entered by the jury in this class action in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey in Camden, New Jersey on Wednesday, July 13, 2011, following five weeks of trial. The jury found both that ALPA violated its duty of fair representation to the more than 2,300 TWA pilots in the class and that ALPA’s violation caused tangible injury to at least some of the TWA pilots. A second trial to determine the amount of the damages is anticipated by the end of the year.

Allen was the lead lawyer for the TWA pilots at trial. Allen indicated that although the damage calculations were not yet completed, initial analysis suggests that the total damages could approach or even exceed a billion dollars.

Allen and Joe were assisted at trial by Lisa Rodriguez and Nicole Acchione of the law firm Trujillo Rodriguez & Richards, LLC, based in Haddonfield, New Jersey and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Lisa assumed the post of President of the New Jersey State Bar during the trial.

Witnesses at trial included former TWA pilots who were involved in ALPA committees involved in managing various aspects of the TWA pilots’ interests in the merger. ALPA staff attorneys and both present and former ALPA executives also testified in the case. Former ALPA President Duane Woerth, U.S. Ambassador to the International Civil Aviation Organization, whose comments and actions were a major focus of the trial, testified on behalf of ALPA as its first witness.

Large numbers of former TWA pilots, many in their old TWA uniforms, attended the trial as observers. Approximately 65 former TWA pilots were present for the first day of closing argument, according to observers.

Allen believes that this case had national significance. According to Allen, the TWA pilots’ case was the largest duty of fair representation case ever to go to trial, both in terms of the number of affected union members and the dollars involved. The case has been closely monitored both by persons in the aviation industry as well as by large, national unions.

In an interesting reversal of the practice in Missouri, in New Jersey civil defendants present their closing first, followed by the plaintiffs. Allen’s reaction to the judge’s mention in court today of the practice caused the judge to remark that he looked like he had died and gone to heaven.

The trial is pending in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey in Camden, New Jersey.

Dozens of pilots, members of the class, have attended most days of the five weeks of trial to date. A particularly large crowd of pilots is anticipated for closing arguments Monday.

Allen is being assisted at trial by Joe Jacobson as well as by lawyers at our Philadelphia- and New Jersey-based co-counsel, Trujillo Rodriguez & Richards, LLC..

Nearly every lawyer at the firm has worked on the TWA pilots case in the five years that Green Jacobson has been co-counsel for the plaintiffs, and the months leading up to this trial have required an exceptional outpouring of effort by most of our lawyers.

The trial is expected to take between six and eight weeks. Press anticipates completing the plaintiffs’ case within two weeks.

While the lawsuit asserts the legal claim that these employees are entitled under the Pension Plan to a pension enhancement when their employment with the A-B group terminated upon the sale or spin-off of their employer, even though they continued to have a job with the new company, the issue before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit involves a procedural aspect of the federal pension law known as ERISA. The issue on appeal is whether the employees are required to file an administrative claim for enhanced benefits and have that claim denied before they can file suit, or whether they can file suit immediately without filing such a claim based upon the Pension Plan’s and A-B InBev’s statements published to them before the spin-off that they would not be entitled to and would not be receiving the pension enhancement.

Notably, every former A-B group employee who has applied for an enhanced pension benefit under these circumstances has had the claim rejected for the very reasons stated in the pre-spin-off statements made by the Plan and A-B InBev.

Green Jacobson is representing the former A-B Entertainment Companies employees jointly with Clayton law firm Stone, Leyton & Gershman, P.C.

Green Edge is the owner of a U.S. patent for the manufacture and sale of colored rubber mulch, a recycled product that imitates and on viewing is indistinguishable from wooden garden mulch.

The lawsuit alleges that a Florida manufacturer of colored rubber mulch has been infringing Green Edge’s patent since 2001. The Florida manufacturer contends that Green Edge’s patent is invalid.

The trial is anticipated to take up to two weeks.

Green Jacobson had been retained by the County and Commission to collect the unpaid taxes from the internet travel companies. While the case was pending, the Missouri General Assembly passed a law stating that internet travel companies were not responsible for collecting and paying these taxes. The appeal challenges the constitutionality of the new law under the Missouri Constitution, asserting that it violates constitutional provisions prohibiting the General Assembly from releasing companies from liabilities to counties and other governmental entities, and that the process by which the new law was added to a pending bill was also defective, in violation of Missouri’s constitutional “original purpose,” “one subject,” and “clear title” requirements.