17 October 2023

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District, is scheduled to convene court Thursday, November 9, 2023, at Westminster College in Fulton. The arguments will be held in the Hermann Lounge at the Hunter Activity Center on campus. Beginning at 9 a.m., a three-judge panel consisting of Judge Mark Pfeiffer, Judge Alok Ahuja and Judge Thomas Chapman will hear oral arguments in four cases. After the oral arguments, the judges will take time to discuss the court system and take general questions from the audience.

Pfeiffer will preside over the proceedings at Westminster.  He was appointed to the Western District in 2009. Before his appointment to the judiciary, he practiced law in Springfield and Columbia. He is a 1989 graduate of Westminster College. Ahuja was appointed to the Western District in 2007. Previously, he practiced law in Washington, D.C., and Kansas City. Chapman was appointed to the court in 2018. Immediately prior to his appointment, he served as a circuit judge for the 43rd Judicial Circuit of Missouri (Caldwell, Clinton, Daviess, DeKalb and Livingston counties) for more than seven years. He is a 1988 graduate of Westminster College.

The court regularly convenes court in Kansas City. For more than 25 years, however, the court has held dockets in several of the 45 counties in the court’s jurisdiction, which includes all of northwest Missouri and most of central Missouri. The court convenes oral arguments outside of Kansas City to give individuals an opportunity to observe a part of the judicial system they normally do not see and to familiarize those attending with the court's role in the judicial system. 

Attachment: case summaries

Contact: Kimberly K. Boeding, clerk of court

Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District

(816) 889-3600