23 September 2025

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District, plans to convene court October 14, 2025, at Missouri Western State University in St. Joseph. The oral arguments will be held in the Leah Sprat Hall on campus. Beginning at 9 a.m., a three-judge panel consisting of Judge Janet Sutton, Judge Gary Witt, and Judge W. Douglas Thomson 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.

Sutton will preside over the proceedings at Missouri Western. She was appointed to the Western District in 2021. Before her appointment to the court, she served as a municipal judge for the city of Excelsior Springs and as an associate circuit judge and a circuit judge in the 7th Judicial Circuit (Clay County). Witt joined the Western District in 2010. 

Immediately prior to his appointment, he served as an associate circuit judge in Platte County (6th Judicial Circuit). Previously, he practiced law in Platte County and served in the Missouri House of Representatives. Thomson was appointed to the Western District in 2020. Prior to that, he served as an associate circuit judge in Nodaway County (in the 4th Judicial Circuit) for more than five years.

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: summaries of cases scheduled to be argued

Contact: Kimberly K. Boeding, clerk of court

Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District

(816) 889-3600