22 March 2023

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District, plans to convene court at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville, Missouri, on Tuesday, April 11, 2023. 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 Presiding Judge Douglas Thomson, Judge Lisa White Hardwick and Judge Karen King Mitchell, will hear oral arguments in three 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 joined the Western District in 2020. Prior to that, he served as an associate circuit judge for in Nodaway County (in the 4th Judicial Circuit) for more than five years. Hardwick was appointed to the Western District in 2001. Immediately prior to her appointment, she served as a circuit judge in the 16th Judicial Circuit (Jackson County). Mitchell joined the Western District in 2009. Previously, she spent more than 20 years in the Missouri attorney general’s office and then served as Missouri’s director of revenue.

The court regularly convenes court in Kansas City. For more than 20 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: Case summaries

Contact: Kimberly K. Boeding, clerk of court

Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District

(816) 889-3600