Missouri Law Research Articles

Criminalizing Librarianship: State Legislatures Creating Legal Jeopardies for Librarians

US history has featured many periods of greatly enhanced efforts to ban books, such as during the Comstock era, World War I, and the McCarthy era of the 1950s. Similar to previous periods, the book banning movement that has arisen during the novel coronavirus pandemic of the 2020s has featured widespread efforts to ban many books, particularly those representing certain marginalized experiences, from schools and libraries. However, this current tidal wave of ban booking has added the new and disturbing dimension of laws being considered in state legislatures that would actually create civil and criminal penalties for librarians if banned books were available in the library. These proposed laws are part of much broader legislative efforts at the state and national levels to limit the ability of libraries to construct collections and provide services that meet the needs of their communities. Though there have been some lingering, but unfounded, concerns that librarians might be criminally liable for incorrect information in the library collection and some national security laws have created potential legal jeopardy for librarians in extremely specific circumstances, these new proposed laws are the first that would create widespread legal liabilities for librarians. This article considers the nature of these proposed laws, the larger context that has generated them, and the implications if passed into law, including the Missouri law that has gone into effect.

Missouri Citizen Perceptions: Giving Second Amendment Preservation Legislation a Second Look.

In June 2021, Missouri passed the "Second Amendment Preservation Act" (SAPA). Though SAPA passed easily and had gubernatorial support, many Missouri law enforcement agencies, including the Missouri Sheriff's Association, oppose it. Missing from this policy conversation, and deserving of analysis, is the voice of Missouri citizens. Using qualitative interview data and survey data, we explored what if anything Missouri gun owners knew about SAPA and what they perceived its effects would be on gun-related murders, suicides, gun thefts, and mass shootings. Most Missouri gun owners had not heard about SAPA and were ambivalent about its potential effect on gun safety outcomes. Our findings also indicate that respondents' attitudes toward SAPA and the impact of such policy on safety is driven by gun ownership (i.e., primary versus living in a household with firearms), partisan identification, and attitudes toward government firearm regulation.

Salt, Smurthwaite, and Smith: The Origins of the Modern Legal Identity of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Salt, Smurthwaite, and Smith: The Origins of the Modern Legal Identity of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

In the Shadow of Dred Scott: St. Louis Freedom Suits and the Legal Culture of Slavery in Antebellum America by Kelly M. Kennington

Reviewed by: In the Shadow of Dred Scott: St. Louis Freedom Suits and the Legal Culture of Slavery in Antebellum America by Kelly M. Kennington Austin Allen (bio) In the Shadow of Dred Scott: St. Louis Freedom Suits and the Legal Culture of Slavery in Antebellum America. By Kelly M. Kennington. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2017. Pp. xv, 290. $54.95 cloth; $28.95 paper) Kelly M. Kennington’s In the Shadow of Dred Scott analyzes the 287 freedom suits that African American litigants pursued in St. Louis between 1810 and 1860. The city’s location along major transit routes running east, west, north, and south and its presence on the border between slavery and freedom gave rise to a variety of fact situations that, if litigated, may have established a freedom claim. St. Louis also hosted a black community that understood the law’s potential for negotiating the terms of enslavement and a legal profession willing to pursue freedom suits. But African American litigants formed the driving force behind those suits and Kennington argues that their participation in these cases shaped St. Louis’s legal culture. Missouri policy toward freedom suits experienced two major periods of transformation. One followed statehood in the 1820s. The other [End Page 221] occurred in the late 1840s and 1850s and resulted in the Dred Scott case. Most of Kennington’s sources, however, fall between these two periods, so she approaches her topic thematically. After discussing the setting of antebellum St. Louis, Kennington explores enslaved people’s decision to bring suit. The city’s black community developed a consciousness about the right to sue for freedom. Potential litigants tapped into this knowledge and weighed their options, determining whether legal action offered a better option than, say, running away. If they decided to sue, black litigants exposed themselves to significant risks. Enslavers might retaliate with violence or by removing them from the city or selling them to someone in another state. Missouri law made provisions against such activity, but the safeguards did not always prove sufficient. Litigants in freedom claims also had access to a legal profession willing (or, in some cases, required) to take up their cases and see them through. Freedom suits in St. Louis generally turned on some combination of three claims. Litigants asserted that they were born free and thus were illegally enslaved. Or they claimed to have been freed by will or some other agreement with an enslaver. Most often, however, they claimed that residence in free territory—usually in nearby Illinois— rendered them free. And the city’s freedom claimants appeared to have been successful. Kennington notes that thirty-eight perecent of the suits initiated in St. Louis resulted in freedom. Another thirty percent did not. (She could not determine the outcome of the remaining thirty-two of cases.) In the Shadow of Dred Scott makes two historiographical contributions. One is specific to the study of the Dred Scott Case, which has generally focused on the handful of Missouri freedom suits that made their way to the state’s Supreme Court. Kennington’s study provides the best account of the social and legal context (as well as the inherent risks and personal dimensions) in which Dred Scott emerged. Second, the book contributes to a growing body of work on black litigants in the South. Kennington builds on Ariela Gross’s Double Character: Slavery and Mastery in the Antebellum Southern Courtroom (2000) that studies the way in which enslaved people influenced the [End Page 222] legal process, usually by leveraging their status as property to exert an indirect pressure on the legal system. Much like Kimberly M. Welch does in Black Litigants in the Antebellum South (2017), however, Kennington focuses on more direct forms legal action in which African Americans asserted personhood. She emphasizes that claimants in St. Louis freedom cases foregrounded their character as persons and portrayed their treatment as property as a grievous wrong. In the hands of these claimants, the law became a powerful mechanism for African American agency and resistance to slavery. There is little to criticize in this book. In the Shadow of Dred Scott is a fine piece of scholarship. Readers might wish...

Extending Antimicrobial Stewardship to All Hospitalized Children: The Time Is Now.

Antimicrobial resistance is a global threat to human health regardless of age or geography,1 and the most rapidly modifiable cause for antimicrobial resistance is antimicrobial use.2 In the United States, 1287 antibiotic prescriptions are written for every 1000 children 0 to 2 years of age annually, up to half of which are inappropriately prescribed or completely unnecessary.3 Antimicrobial exposure is not benign and may result in far-reaching and lifelong ramifications for child health and development, including risks of adverse drug events,4 Clostridium difficile infection,5 and long-term risks for developing obesity.6 Given the impact of inappropriate antimicrobial use on human health, it is no surprise that antimicrobial stewardship is an emerging focus of national and international health agencies7 and regulatory agencies, such as The Joint Commission.8 In the United States, laws mandating the development and implementation of antimicrobial stewardship programs (ASPs) have already been passed in California and Missouri. As stated in the Missouri law, “each hospital and ambulatory surgical center, excluding mental health facilities, shall establish an antibiotic stewardship program for evaluating the judicious use of antibiotics, especially antibiotics that are the last line of defense against resistant infections.”9 Hospitals that treat both children and adults may face greater challenges to implementing ASPs than freestanding …

Allen v. Breyers: The Missouri Supreme Court's 2016 Decision Adds Clarity (and Confusion) to Insurers' Duty and Right to Defend Their Insureds

In a previous paper, I suggested that the Missouri Supreme Court had adopted a forfeiture penalty for insurers that breached the duty to defend. This paper revises that position based on the December 2016 Missouri Supreme Court decision of Allen v. Bryers in which the court held that to recover damages beyond the applicable liability insurance policy limits, the insured (or an assignee) would have to demonstrate the insurer had acted in bad faith. However, the court confirmed a forfeiture approach up to the liability insurance policy limits. Where an insurer breaches its the duty to defend in a liability insurance policy, the insurer is bound by the result in the underlying case up to its policy limits. The court used an analysis similar to issue preclusion, holding that the insurer is bound by all facts actually litigated and determined in the underlying case. The paper explains this decision, and points out some uncertainty created by the opinion regarding what constitutes bad faith behavior by an insurer under Missouri law with regard to the duty to defend and as to what more beyond unreasonable conduct is required to demonstrate bad faith. The paper concludes by placing the Missouri approach it in its national context by comparing it to the approach by the Restatement of the Law, Liability Insurance. Section 19 of the Restatement also imposes a forfeiture up to the policy limits but only if the breach of the duty to defend was without a reasonable basis. In addition, the Restatement recognizes a kind of safe harbor for insurers who defend under a reservation of rights, while in Missouri an insurer is not entitled to reserve its right while at the same time providing a defense (unless the insured specifically consents).

Missouri Law and the American Conscience: Historical Rights and Wrongs

Review of: Missouri Law and the American Conscience: Historical Rights and Wrongs, edited by Kenneth H. Winn.

Missouri Law and the American Conscience: Historical Rights and Wrongs ed. by Kenneth H. Winn

Reviewed by: Missouri Law and the American Conscience: Historical Rights and Wrongs ed. by Kenneth H. Winn F. Thornton Miller Missouri Law and the American Conscience: Historical Rights and Wrongs. Edited by Kenneth H. Winn. (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2016. Pp. viii, 288. $55.00, ISBN 978-0-8262-2069-1.) This valuable collection of essays, written by historians, law professors, and a former chief justice of the Missouri Supreme Court, provides information on topics in Missouri legal history ranging from the French and Spanish colonial period to the late twentieth century that, except for the famous Dred Scottv. Sandford (1857) case, are not well known. William E. Foley, in "Testing the Limits of American Justice: Indian Trials in Nineteenth-Century Missouri," shows that while Native Americans' "judicial settlements typically employed restitution, compensation, and banishment," they also sought retribution (p. 9). Unlike the French and Spanish in upper Louisiana, who generally tried to keep the peace because of their small numbers, Americans, following the United States' purchase of the Louisiana Territory in 1803 and a large migration wave, tended to force Indians into their justice system. Though some judges tried to be just when dealing with Indians during trials, juries were inclined to find them guilty. Paul Finkelman, in "The Politics of Slavery and Missouri's First Elected Supreme Court: Dred Scott v. Emerson," notes that while much has been written on the Scott decision in the U.S. Supreme Court, there is little scholarship on litigation in Scott v. Emerson (1852) at the state level. American courts followed the English common-law precedent set in Somerset v. Stewart (1772) that a slave became free when going into an area where there was no slavery and could not be forced to become a slave again. Also of importance for the Scott decision, Missouri courts had previously taken the position that the freedom of a former slave endured even when the person returned to an area where slavery was legal. Dred Scott sued for his freedom and won in the St. Louis Circuit Court in 1852. When the losing party appealed, the Missouri Supreme Court, which included newly elected proslavery Democrats, denied the common-law precedents and ruled that Scott became a slave when he returned to Missouri. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney confirmed and elaborated on the lower court's decision when Scott appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. [End Page 964] James R. Devine, in "Shaking the Shackles: Curt Flood's Challenge to Baseball's Reserve Clause," discusses Curt Flood's legal challenge to the reserve clause after the St. Louis Cardinals traded him in 1969. The U.S. Supreme Court held that professional baseball was not interstate commerce and did not come under antitrust laws. Along with a critical analysis of Supreme Court justice Harry Blackmun's majority opinion, Devine quotes from Justice Thurgood Marshall's dissenting opinion that Flood "was virtually enslaved by the owners of major league baseball clubs" (p. 231). In time, the Baseball Players Association engaged in collective bargaining with the owners, and the goal of free agency was met. Kenneth H. Winn, the editor of the collection, contributes two of the essays. In "The Frown of Fortune: George Sibley, Breach of Promise, and Anglo-Francophone Conflict on the Missouri Frontier," he discusses a breach of promise case in the territorial superior court. In "The Living Example: Laurance M. Hyde and the Missouri Nonpartisan Court Plan," Winn discusses Laurance Hyde's plan to take politics out of judicial selection by having commissions consisting of the chief justice of the Missouri Supreme Court and representatives of the governor and the Missouri bar choose judges. This Missouri plan influenced legal reformers in the American Bar Association. Karen Anderson Winn, in "Constitutional Mollycoddling: How Women Won the Right to Serve as Jurors in Missouri (but only if they wanted to)," discusses how organizations such as the Missouri League of Women Voters, after the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, worked to secure women's right to serve on juries. At Missouri's 1943–1944 state constitutional convention a compromise was worked out that women could serve on juries only if they chose to. Douglas E. Abrams...

Good Faith and Breach of the Duty to Settle: Perspectives from the American Law Institute Principles/Restatement Project on Liability Insurance

This paper addresses the standard of good faith to be applied to the duty to settle. All insurance policies contain an implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing. This implied covenant has been applied by U.S. courts to an implied duty to settle contained in most liability insurance policies. The implied duty to settle arises from the insurers’ right to settle cases under terms of most liability policies. Because insurers have the duty to defend and the right to settle, courts have found that insurers have an obligation to act in good faith when considering a settlement offer within the policy limits of the liability insurance policy. The American Law Institute “restatement” project to restate the law of liability insurance explicitly adopts a test for the duty to settle that an insurer “has a duty to the insured to make reasonable settlement decisions,” and that a “reasonable settlement decision is one that would be made by a reasonable person that bears the sole financial responsibility for the full amount of the potential judgment”. This standard is referred to as the Disregard the Limits (DTL) standard. This paper provides background on the DTR standard and will compare that standard to the Equal Consideration (EC) standard which requires that an insurer, in addressing settlement offers, give equal consideration to the interests of the insured as to its own interests. It will then situate Missouri law within the context of these two tests and the state of the law more generally.

Evolution of the Missouri Human Rights Act and the Development of the 'Contributing Factor' Analysis

For years, Missouri courts have followed Federal Title VII precedent in order to interpret the Missouri Human Rights Act. The extremely similar language in both acts initially supported this interpretation. However, based upon new precedent highlighting minor differences, the creation of a new application requirement in the Missouri jury instructions, and some confusion regarding the textual meaning of the causation element, the Missouri Supreme Court announced a new standard for employment discrimination law in the case of Daugherty v. City of Maryland Heights. As a result of this new “contributing factor” standard, Missouri state courts and federal courts applying Missouri law have expressed confusion in the application of this new causation element. In addition, the Missouri legislature has expressed a clear opinion that the Missouri Supreme Court’s standard was not intended through repeated attempts to amend the Missouri Human Rights Act.In this paper, I examined the history of federal Title VII employment discrimination law and its application to the Missouri Human Rights Act. From there, I discuss the ingredients that made the new “contributing factor” standard possible as well as possible justifications for the unique interpretation. Finally, I end with the signs of confusion among the courts and the Missouri legislatures repeated attempts to amend the act.

Letters

This book provides informationfor local histo rians and could be a handy reference for schools, museums, and historical societies. FrancisDrake in Nehalem Bay 1579:Setting the Historical Record Straight byGarry D. Gitzen Isnik Publishing, Wheeler, Oregon, 2008. Illustrations, photographs, maps, tables, notes, bibliography, index. 255 pages. $59-95 cloth. $39-95 paper. This book challengesthebelief thatFrancisDrake landedhis GoldenHinde inCalifornia in 1579by arguing thathewas actually in Oregon's Nehalem Bay. The author explores surveying, navigation, geology,ethnology, geography, and cartographyto put forthhis premise thatFrancisDrake was the first European to interact culturally, spiritually and physically with PacificNorthwest coast Indians. Skeena River Fish and TheirHabitat byAllen S.Gottesfeld and Ken A. Rabnett forewordby JimLichatowich Ecotrust, Portland, Oregon, 2008. Photographs, maps, tables, bibliography, index. 352 pages. $29.95 paper. Allen Gottesfeld, head scientist for the Skeena Fisheries Commission, and Ken Rabnett, a fish eries researcher, have both been residents of the Skeena watershed for over twenty-five years. In thisbook, theyshareextensiveknowledge of the river and its fish, focusing on the freshwater part of thesalmon lifecycle intheireffort to shed light on this stillpoorly understood watershed. The SkeenaRiver is thesecond largestriversystemin BritishColumbia and one of the most productive salmon rivers inNorth America. Images of America: West Linn by Cornelia Becker Seigneur Arcadia Publishing, Charleston, SC, 2008. Photographs, bibliography, index. 128pages. $21.99 paper. This new pictorial historyof West Linn includes more than 200 vintage photographs. Many of the photographs have never before been pub lished, including those of thefirstfairprincess; theoriginal City Hall built in 1936, which now houses the police station; and thehistoric fire department.Although an 1861fire, then flood, destroyedwhat was originallyLinn City, the site at Willamette Falls continued drawing industry, and West Linn, known for its hills, trees, rivers, and famous meteorite unearthed in 1902, was incorporated into Oregon in 1913. Heavy Burdens on Small Shoulders: The Labour ofPioneer Children on theCanadian Prairies by Sandra Rollings-Magnusson The University ofAlberta Press, Edmonton, 2009. Pho tographs, tables, notes, bibliography, index. 192pages. $34-95 paper. Only a century ago on the Canadian prairies, young people labored alongside theirparents working the land, chopping wood, and doing othernecessary chores,all the while learningthe domesticandmanual laborskills needed forlife on a family farm. The author uses historic research, photographs, and personal anecdotes to describe thekindsofwork performedby childrenand how thesetasksfitintothefamilyeconomy.The book contributes to the study of western Canadian his tory as well as family and gender studies. _LETTERS To theEditor: It is surprisingthatBarbaraMahoney inher articleon the slaveryissue in theOregon State hood contest chose to completely ignore the Dred Scott case. The case was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in early 1857at theheight of the debate, and ithad a direct impacton the issues before Oregon voters and their representatives. According toCharles H. Carey (General History ofOregon, p. 505), "The effect of thedecision as 650 OHQ vol. 110, no. 4 applied toOregon was everywhere debated inthat Territory." But Mahoney's analysis is completely silent on the subject. Briefly, Dred Scottwas the slave of anArmy doctor who took him from Missouri, a slave state, to awestern territory. Slavery was prohibited here by the Missouri Compromise, the law that made thenorth half of theLouisiana Purchase except for Missouri freeof slavery. Then Scott and his master went to Illinois, which was a free state, and finally back to Missouri. The doctor soldhim and Scott sued the new owner in federal court, claiming thatlivingintheterritory and inIllinois hadmade him free. The court found againsthim and Scott appealed. Chief Justice Taney,writing fortheU.S. Supreme Court, held thatScottmay have been free while he was in Illinois but this didn't make him a U.S. citizen. When he came back to Missouri, hewas subject to Missouri law, which consideredhim a slaveagain.And he didn't become freeby being in the territory, because Congress had no power to take a slave owner's propertywithout due process of law.Thus the Missouri Compromise was nullified. Actually, the so called "squatter sovereignty" doctrinehad alreadyreplaced the Missouri Com promise. The Kansas Nebraska Act of 1854had decreed thatthe slaveryissuewould be decided ineachTerritory by a vote of theresidents. Chief Justice Taney doesn't mention it,but his logic apparently wiped away thatpossible restraint on the spread of slavery also. The decision posed...

Motor-vehicle crash history and licensing outcomes for older drivers reported as medically impaired in Missouri

The identification and evaluation of medically impaired drivers is an important safety issue. Medical fitness to drive is applicable to all ages but is particularly salient for older adults. Voluntary procedures, whereby various professionals and family members may report medical fitness concerns to State driver license bureaus, are common in the United States. This paper examines traffic crashes of drivers reported during 2001–2005 under the State of Missouri's voluntary reporting law (House Bill HB-1536) and the resulting licensing outcomes. Missouri's law is non-specific as to age, but the mean age of reported drivers was 80. Reports were submitted by police officers (30%), license office staff (27%), physicians (20%), family members (16%), and others (7%). The most common medical condition was dementia/cognitive (45%). Crash history for reported drivers was higher than that of controls, dating back to 1993, reaching a peak in 2001 when the crash involvement of reported drivers was 9.3% vs. 2.2% for controls—a fourfold difference. The crash involvement of reported drivers decreased rapidly after, indicating the impact of HB-1536 reporting with subsequent license revocation and to a lesser degree, mortality. Of the 4,100 reported individuals, 144 (3.5%) retained a driver's license after the process.

The Rescue of Joshua Glover: A Fugitive Slave Law, the Constitution, and the Coming of the Civil War (review)

The Rescue of Joshua Glover: A Fugitive Slave Law, Constitution, and Coming of Civil War. By H. Robert Baker. (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2006. Pp. xiv, 260. Illustrations. Cloth, $38.95.)Reviewed by Stephen MiddletonThe fight to liberate African Americans is not a twentieth-century phenomenon, as Robert Baker makes clear in this gripping story about Joshua Glover. The scene is Racine, Wisconsin; year 1854-in a decade when abolitionist lawyer Salmon Portland Chase characterized slavery as the great question of day. Joshua Glover was among more than four million African Americans enslaved in South, and he joined an unknown number of men, women, and children who took flight to a free state or Canada. Glover chose former and, circa 1851, took refuge near Racine, a port city in Wisconsin. He had been legally held against his will by Benammi Garland, a Missouri slave owner who tracked him to Racine and captured him there as a fugitive slave. Garland had prepared for resistance from locals in free Wisconsin by enlisting federal marshals and a few toughs to carry out Fugitive Slave Act, which authorized him to capture and remove anyone who legally owed service under state law. But resistance in Wisconsin was probably greater than anything Garland had expected. Not only did Wisconsinites resist Garland and rescue Joshua Glover, they challenged constitutionality of Fugitive Slave Act. This book chronicles their resistance and constitutional arguments they developed in a futile effort to defeat fugitive slave law.An underlying theme of Baker's book is conflict of laws that surrounded capture of Joshua Glover. Missouri law had sanctioned slavery, and, as long as he was there or in a state with similar laws, Garland was within his legal rights to oppress anyone of African heritage if they had been designated as slaves. Federal law supported slavery, and, with Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, it assisted in capture and removal of fugitives, as well as limited rights of accused to prove their free status. A counterargument developed in antebellum America, as abolitionist lawyers, including Chase, challenged fugitive slave legislation, arguing that Constitution had deprived Congress of any legal authority to pass laws to support slavery. Wisconsin abolitionists shared this point of view, and majority on state Supreme Court agreed. Thus when Garland captured Glover, intending to remove him, he faced abolitionists and state judges who were willing to challenge nefarious law.Baker anchors this story in context of nineteenth-century struggle over slavery. There were competing forces in struggle for hearts and minds of Americans. Minstrelsy, America's first unabashedly popular theatre, is his best evidence to describe cultural violence against African Americans (72). Minstrelsy might have been hilariously entertaining to white who watched white performers in blackface mimic supposedly hapless and contented slaves, but it produced a false impression about black people in white mind. Baker explains that these shows were highly complex, and sometimes depicted how black families were separated and sold away, but they mainly conveyed notion that slavery was an appropriate status for blacks. Baker concludes that audiences increasingly left minstrel shows not only thoroughly entertained but secure in their feelings of racial superiority, and Garland and his supporters skillfully described Glover in unfavorable ways, just as minstrels had characterized black people (73). Of course, abolitionists pushed back, arguing that Glover was industrious and honest, seeming to say that he was entitled to freedom because he was different from masses of African Americans.That Wisconsin was a free state undoubtedly helped Glover's cause, and state was also blessed with able advocates for freedom, including lawyer James H. …

The Contours of the Unconscionabilty Defense in Missouri

This paper provides a brief overview of Missouri law on the defense of unconscionability to the enforcement of contractual obligations. It surveys selected modern case-law and provides a brief synthesis.

Unpublished Supplement To Another Worthy Tradition

I published an article in the Missouri Law Review, called Another Worthy Tradition: How the Free Speech Curriculum Ignores Electronic Media and Distorts Free Speech Doctrine. The cite is 70 Missouri L. Rev. 59 (2005). In that article, in Part III, I examined a sample of First Amendment textbooks used in the top ten ranked law schools. I wrote the first draft of that article, however, in 2003 while a third-year law student at Harvard Law School. By the time it was accepted and going through edits, it was September of 2004. So I updated my sample. As a result, I analyzed some different books. This file includes the textbooks in the previous sample that I had to drop in the new sample. This file has not gone through law review revision, nor my own exhaustive revision. If there are flaws in it, I would be happy to correct them. I provide the analysis of the other textbooks merely because they provide more evidence for my findings, and because they may interest a curious reader.

Source-identification investigations of petroleum contaminated groundwater in the Missouri Ozarks

The growing population in the Missouri Ozarks rely on the abundant supply of potable groundwater found in the fractured bedrock underlying the region. Protection of this valuable resource from surface, or near-surface contamination is essential to the health and safety of the citizens of Missouri. Petroleum products stored in underground storage tanks pose a threat to groundwater if a release occurs. “Pools” of free product of petroleum can become trapped in voids commonly found on the karst bedrock of the Ozarks. These pools become underground sources of contamination by slowly dissolving into the groundwater. Although the free product rarely travels far from the surface source, dissolved-phase contamination can migrate thousands of meters through underground conduits. Dissolved phase petroleum degasses and partitions out of the groundwater in these conduits. Consequently, contaminated groundwater is not commonly found more than a kilometer or two (few thousand feet) from the source. The Missouri Department of Natural Resources, Division of Geology and Land Survey's Leaking Underground Storage Tank Unit (DGLS/LUST) investigates sites where petroleum-contaminated groundwater has been found in springs or private wells but a source of the contamination is unknown. These investigations start at the regional scale by determining the recharge area of the contaminated groundwater and by identifying the potentially responsible parties (PRPs). A review of DGLS documents and well logs supplemented by field measurements of water levels in private wells throughout the area is used to construct a potentiometric map and determine regional groundwater flow direction. Water tracing is used to confirm or deny the validity/accuracy of the potentiometric map and to establish hydrogeologic connections between the potential surface source of the contamination and the affected groundwater. Fluorescent dyes are injected into the subsurface, recovered in packets containing activated carbon and analyzed by a synchronously scanning spectrofluorometer. These results are compared to background fluorescence conditions established at the site prior to injection. The background conditions and dye recovery results must be submitted to the Missouri Water Trace Committee for approval as an independent quality assurance/quality control measure. Each of the PRPs found to be within the recharge area of the contaminated groundwater are investigated to determine the source, or sources, of the contamination. Initial field screening techniques are followed up by confirmatory sampling of soil and groundwater. Geophysical methods such as resistivity and electromagnetic conductivity are used to locate the bedrock surface, fracture patterns and areas of extensive petroleum contamination. On-site drilling activities are performed at each of the PRPs with on-site contamination screening methods such as analyzing soil gas within the borehole with a photoionization detector (PID) and colorimetric tubes. Soil samples are collected and can be analyzed on-site with immunoassay kits with confirmatory samples sent to the lab. Temporary monitoring wells are installed in boreholes to collect on-site groundwater data. Depth-to-water levels are measured, and the relative elevations of the temporary wells are surveyed so that a more detailed potentiometric map can be constructed. Water samples are collected from the temporary wells, and the boreholes are abandoned per Missouri Law. Petroleum fingerprinting by fluorescence is another tool used to investigate PRPs and determine the source of contamination. Petroleum is extracted from soil or water samples collected during on-site drilling and compared to the petroleum which is extracted from a sample collected at the contaminated spring or well.

One Public Utility Can't Condemn Property of Another

Osage Water Company (OWC) is a public utility producing and distributing water within the city of Osage Beach, Missouri, in Camden County. OWC held a certificate granted by the state that gave it authority to provide and sell water within its certificated area of Osage Beach in Camden County. Miller County Water Authority Inc. (MCWA) is a not‐for‐profit corporation that has provided water service to residents in Camden and Miller counties since 1995. Although MCWA had an operating permit that allowed it to dispense water to the public, it did not have a permit to sell water. Despite not having such a permit, Miller sells water service to two subdivisions in Camden County, both of which are within Osage's certificated area of service. OWC petitioned for condemnation of the real property of MCWA but lost in the trial court. On appeal, the court said that OWC was subject to a state law prohibiting one public utility from condemning the property of another. According to the court, Miller was a “water corporation” as defined by Missouri law because it was incorporated and was in the business of operating, managing, and providing water service to the public for compensation. The court said that the important thing to consider here was not what Miller's charter says it may do, but what it actually does. The trial court decision was affirmed.

Testing Is State's Responsibility

Missouri has monitored public drinking water since 1919. In 1978, Missouri law enacted a safe drinking water act giving the state authority to enforce state laws for public drinking water. Under the law, the state health department was required to provide testing free of charge. The state constitution was amended in 1980, making it unconstitutional for the state to reduce the state‐financed proportion of the costs. In 1982, the law was amended to require the collection of fees to cover the reasonable costs of laboratory services, even if the water supplier is not using the state's services. The trial court ruled against the Missouri Municipal League when they challenged the fees. An appellate court reversed the decision, stating that the 1982 law violated the constitutional prohibition against reducing the state's financial proportion of the costs of water testing.

Missouri law provides for pharmacist prescribing

Missouri law provides for pharmacist prescribing

The Economic Impact of State Restrictions on Abortion: Parental Consent and Notification Laws and Medicaid Funding Restrictions

State-legislative support for liberalized abortion policies, the availability of abortion providers, and actual abortion rates vary widely across states. This article uses national data to examine the impact of the following three major, enforceable state abortion restrictions as of 1988 on the access to and use of abortion services: state restrictions on Medicaid financing of abortions for low-income women (36 states), state requirements for parental consent or parental notification for minors to obtain abortions (11 states), and state restrictions on insurance coverage of abortion for public employees (8 states). The impact of state abortion restrictions is becoming an increasingly important policy issue as the number and types of restrictions which can be enforced in the US increase rapidly. The Supreme Court in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989) upheld a Missouri law banning abortions in public hospitals and the involvement of public employees in the performance of abortions; states via this ruling may also enforce mandatory testing for viability after a specified point in the pregnancy. The Supreme Court then in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey (1992) effectively ruled that states can enforce a 24-hour waiting period and a state-prescribed talk on abortion for women seeking abortion. Analysis of the data found that there are significantly fewer hospitals, clinics, and private physicians' offices providing abortions in states with parental consent or notification laws. Moreover the rate of minors' abortions per 1000 teen pregnancies is 16% lower, and the rate of minors' abortions per 1000 women aged 15-19 is 25% lower in states with such laws compared to states without the laws. Data from abortion clinics and referral services in Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Rhode Island suggest that 20-55% of minors are going to court instead of informing their parents. 35% of minors who contacted a clinic in Massachusetts and 49% in Rhode Island went out of state for abortions. As for Medicaid restrictions, there are significantly fewer hospitals, clinics, and private physicians' offices providing abortions in states which restrict funding of abortions as compared to states which do not. State restrictions on insurance coverage of abortion for public employees do not appear to be associated with statistically significant differences in abortion rates or abortion availability.