Litigation Attorneys Brad Kletscher and Tammy Schemmel Obtain Winning Verdicts
October 20, 2010 | Barna, Guzy & Steffen, Ltd.On March 23, 2010, the Minnesota Court of Appeals handed down a landmark decision in the area of receivership law in Minnesota. Barna, Guzy & Steffen Ltd. attorneys Brad Kletscher and Tammy Schemmel represented the winning party State Bank of Delano in the appeal. In the decision, the Minnesota Court of Appeals held that a receiver for real estate does not have to pay the past due bills of a debtor owed to a utility company and that a utility company cannot disconnect utility services if a receiver does not pay such past due bills. In the case of State Bank of Delano v. Centerpoint Energy Resources, 779 N.W.2d 582 (Minn.App. 2010) the court held that “Because Minn.Stat. 576.01, subd. 2, requires a receiver to pay only for normal maintenance expenses of a property and because the Minnesota rules do not permit [the utility] to disconnect utility service to a new customer when the previous customer failed to pay its account balance, [the receiver] is not required to pay [the debtor’s] utility debt.” What this means for banks is that they will not have to pay the past due utility bills of their debtors out of the rents for the real estate if they appoint a receiver for real estate. This provides more…
Read MoreCell Tower Leases Increase
October 6, 2010 | Barna, Guzy & Steffen, Ltd.With the increased demand for cell towers, more and more land owners are being approached by wireless providers to lease property for the construction and operation of a cell tower on a portion of a land owner’s property. If you are a land owner who is considering leasing property to a wireless provider, or if you have been approached by a wireless provider to lease some property for purposes of a cell tower, you need to understand the implications of a cell tower lease on your property, protect your rights, and minimize your liability. Kristi Riley of the Barna, Guzy & Steffen Real Estate Department can help you with your cell tower questions and cell tower leases.
Read MoreEmployee Privacy in a Digital Age
September 29, 2010 | Scott M. LepakElectricity has been a benefit and a curse to the legal profession. Before the invention of the fax machine, lawyers could write letters and not have to worry about the matter for a couple of days while it was being delivered. The first fax I received was 76 pages on thermal paper that didn’t cut off to page sizes and scrolled onto the floor as one page over 50 feet long. I knew at that moment that technology was going to be a mixed bag. Clients now call and leave voice messages telling me that they sent me an email or a fax (or both). I check emails while ice fishing (unless the fish are biting). While the access provided by electricity has been a mixed blessing, there is no questions that it has greatly affected my employment law practice. When the internet was first introduced, it became immediately apparent that employees would view things at work that they would not dream of looking at from home (often for fear of reprisal by a spouse). This created the need for personnel policies related to Internet use. Emails became a common form of discourse that mixed the concepts of informal slang, often not entirely professional or appropriate statements and what was a more permanent…
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