Judges, past finalists among candidates for top Kansas court

Civil Rights

Two members of the Kansas attorney general's staff who were finalists for a previous appointment and four lower-court judges are seeking to fill a vacancy on the state Supreme Court.

A lawyer-led state nominating commission is scheduled to interview 17 candidates for the high court Jan. 16 and 17. The commission will name three finalists for Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly to consider, and she will have until March 17 to pick one.

The vacancy was created by former Supreme Court Chief Justice Lawton Nuss' retirement last week. The next senior justice, Marla Luckert, became chief justice.

It will be Kelly's second appointment to the seven-member court within three months. Last week, the governor appointed Shawnee County District Judge Evelyn Wilson to replace retired Justice Lee Johnson.

The two finalists for that spot were Deputy Attorney General Dennis Depew and Assistant Solicitor General Steven Obermeier.



Court: Airline’s workers can’t sue as class in pay dispute

American Airlines workers at Newark’s airport who claim in a lawsuit they’ve been shorted on overtime pay can’t sue as a class, a federal appeals court ruled this week.

The three-judge panel’s decision published Tuesday reversed a New Jersey judge’s ruling that would have allowed the lawsuit to go forward and include all non-exempt hourly workers employed at Newark Liberty International Airport since April 2014.

Several employees, including mechanics and workers responsible for tasks such as cargo handling, filed the suit in 2016 and said American’s timekeeping system automatically paid employees based on their schedules rather than on the hours they actually worked.

They also alleged managers regularly refused to authorize overtime pay for work performed before and after scheduled shifts and during scheduled 30-minute lunch breaks. The lawsuit sought back pay as well as punitive damages. American denied the allegations.

The appeals court sided with the airline, which argued that while the timekeeping system applied to all employees, it would be wrong to group all employees into a class because it would have to be determined on a case-by-case basis which employees worked overtime.

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Grounds for Divorce in Ohio - Sylkatis Law, LLC

A divorce in Ohio is filed when there is typically “fault” by one of the parties and party not at “fault” seeks to end the marriage. A court in Ohio may grant a divorce for the following reasons:
• Willful absence of the adverse party for one year
• Adultery
• Extreme cruelty
• Fraudulent contract
• Any gross neglect of duty
• Habitual drunkenness
• Imprisonment in a correctional institution at the time of filing the complaint
• Procurement of a divorce outside this state by the other party

Additionally, there are two “no-fault” basis for which a court may grant a divorce:
• When the parties have, without interruption for one year, lived separate and apart without cohabitation
• Incompatibility, unless denied by either party

However, whether or not the the court grants the divorce for “fault” or not, in Ohio the party not at “fault” will not get a bigger slice of the marital property.