Legal Articles

Judicial Admissions

The central purpose of any trial is to determine what factually occurred and to determine who wins under the law based on those factual determinations. In litigation, a “judicial admission” is any act “done in the course of judicial proceedings that concedes for the purpose of litigation that a certain proposition is true.” Moore Automotive…

Double Recoveries

The purpose of legal remedies — money damages or equitable relief — is to make you “whole.” But you can only be made “whole” once. Indeed, “a party cannot be compensated for the same injury twice.”  Norber v. Marcotte, 134 S.W.3d 651, 661 (Mo. App. E.D. 2004). In other words, a “party is not entitled…

Equitable Relief, Pleadings

At trial, a court is limited to the relief requested in the pleadings. The “pleadings” generally refers to the petition, answer, affirmative defenses, and counterclaim. While there are numerous exceptions to this, a prominent exception includes equitable relief. While Missouri courts are restrained from deciding an unpleaded fatual issue, a court of equity grant any…

Abandoned Pleadings

Once a pleading — whether it be a petition, answer, etc. —  is amended the prior iteration of the pleading is considered “abandoned.” Unless the subsequent pleading adopts or incorporates the contents of a prior pleading, the abandoned pleadings is largely irrelevant. In no uncertain terms, Missouri courts have described it as a “mere scrap…

Principal-Agency Liability

If a principal-agent relationship exists, it can have a tremendous impact on a potential lawsuit. “Agency is the fiduciary relationship resulting from the manifestation of consent by an agent to a principal that the agent will act on the principal’s behalf and subject to his or her control.” Cent. Trust and Inv. Co. v. Signalpoint Asset…

Abandoned Pleadings

Pleadings are the main legal documents that set forth a parties claims and defenses. They “present, define, and isolate the issues, so that the trial court and all parties have notice of the issues.” Norman v. Wright, 100 S.W.3d 783, 786 (Mo. 2003). Although Missouri is a fact-pleading state, only “ultimate facts” — those the jury…

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