Tueth Keeney recently won summary judgment for Saint Louis University in a disability and retaliation case in St. Louis. Plaintiff, a disabled former student, was barred from campus after making threats against a University faculty member. The student filed an action in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri seeking an injunction requiring the University to readmit him, as well as claims for actual and punitive damages.
Tueth Keeney first defeated the student’s demands for re-admission, and later requested that the Court dismiss the entire suit, arguing that Plaintiff posed a direct threat to University personnel and was not entitled to seek protection under anti-discrimination statutes. On December 10, 2004, the District Court agreed with Tueth Keeney’s legal arguments, and entered judgment in favor of Saint Louis University. Firm attorney Ian Cooper was the lead attorney representing St. Louis University on this matter. D. Shane Jones also represented SLU on the legal briefs filed with the Court.
Ian Cooper is a founding Shareholder of the Firm of Tueth, Keeney, Cooper, Mohan & Jackstadt, P.C. Prior to founding the Firm, Ian was a partner at Blackwell Sanders Peper Martin in its St. Louis office. Before entering private practice, Ian served as Law Clerk to the Hon. James F. Warren of the Texas Court of Appeals, First Supreme Judicial District, in Houston, Texas from 1984-1985.
Ian practices in the areas of commercial, employment, higher education, environmental, and tort litigation. Ian has tried numerous jury and bench trials in federal and state courts in Missouri, Illinois, Texas and Arkansas. Ian has served as lead counsel in significant employment, tort and commercial cases, including class actions and other complex litigation.
Shane Jones practices in the areas of labor and employment law, education law, and litigation. He routinely advises and represents employers in wage and hour matters, in the design and review of employee handbooks, and disciplining and terminating employees. Shane has also successfully defended employers against discrimination claims, First Amendment claims, Due Process claims, and other constitutional issues, in both state and federal courts. Shane is a co-author of the Employment Law section of the Missouri Bar School Law Desk Book, the principal treatise on school law for Missouri’s lawyers.
Shane is also experienced in crafting proposals and counter-proposals for negotiations, and in effectively presenting the employer’s position at the collective bargaining table. He has directly negotiated, or participated significantly behind the scenes, in the negotiation of dozens of collective bargaining agreements and contracts under Federal and State labor laws. Shane has been a Tueth Keeney shareholder since January, 2003.
Tueth Keeney maintains one of the largest and most successful higher education law groups in the Midwest. Our higher education practice includes representation of numerous colleges and universities throughout Missouri and Illinois. In addition, the Firm is one of approximately twenty law firms in the nation that have been appointed to act as Select Counsel to represent higher education institutions insured by United Educators Insurance Risk Retention Group, Inc., the nation’s largest insurer of colleges and universities. The attorneys in the Firm’s higher education group provide a full range of services to colleges and universities, ranging from day-to-day counseling on legal issues, to representation in complex litigation.