19 March 2024

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District, plans to convene court Tuesday, April 9, 2024, at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville. The oral arguments are scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. on campus at J.W. Jones Student Union.

A three-judge panel, consisting of Western District judges Doug Thomson and Alok Ahuja and Supreme Court of Missouri Judge Zel Fischer, will hear oral arguments in two cases on the docket. After the oral arguments, the judges will take time to discuss the court system and take general questions from the audience.

Thomson will preside over the proceedings at Northwest Missouri State. He Thomson joined the Western District in 2020. Prior to that, he served as an associate circuit judge in Nodaway County (in the 4th Judicial Circuit) for moer than five years. Ahuja was appointed to the Western District in 2007. Previously, he practiced law in Washington, D.C., and Kansas City. Fischer was appointed to the Supreme Court of Missouri in 2008. He served an associate circuit judge in Atchison County (in the 4th Judicial Circuit) and practiced law in Atchison, Holt, Nodaway and Platte counties prior to his appointment to the Supreme Court. 

The Western District appeals court regularly convenes 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 hears 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: summaries of cases scheduled to be argued

Contact: Kimberly K. Boeding, clerk of court

Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District

(816) 889-3600