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1 week ago | 
ocj.com | Leisa Boley Hellwarth |Joel Penhorwood
By Leisa Boley HellwarthIn the 1980s, Congress created a specialized chapter of bankruptcy, Chapter 12, to help struggling farmers reorganize their businesses and debts. Early in my career, I had the opportunity to participate in a national Chapter 12 bankruptcy conference held annually in Lubbock, Texas. Attorneys, judges, and trustees from across the country attended. I got advice and insight from some of the best legal minds I’ve ever met.
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Jan 16, 2025 | 
ocj.com | Leisa Boley Hellwarth
Country Life, Top Headlines By Leisa Boley HellwarthThe year was 1981. I was spending the summer as a Seed Sales Intern with DeKalb. As part of my summer activities, I was invited to participate in a national farm convention held in Columbus. The very first day, I met some nice people from Plains, Georgia. I quickly inquired if they knew Jimmy Carter. I’ll never forget the answer. They knew the whole family. Billy Carter is a wonderful guy. That Jimmy is a little different.
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Nov 19, 2024 | 
ocj.com | Leisa Boley Hellwarth
By Leisa Boley Hellwarth McDonald’s is the largest purchaser of beef in the United States, as well as the world. It appears that the Golden Arches is not an especially happy domestic customer these days. On Friday, Oct. 4, 2024, McDonald’s filed a federal lawsuit in Brooklyn, New York against four packers: Tyson; JBS; Cargill; and National Beef Packing Company, alleging price fixing.
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Oct 21, 2024 | 
ocj.com | Leisa Boley Hellwarth |Dan Armitage
By Leisa Boley Hellwarth On Sept. 26, 2024, the Ohio Supreme Court issued an interesting ruling impacting Ohio agriculture. They unanimously held that the Ohio Department of Taxation must recalculate woodland CAUV (Current Agricultural Use Value) for the years 2015 through 2020. Ohio Administrative Code requires values to be accurate, reliable and practical.
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Sep 30, 2024 | 
ocj.com | Leisa Boley Hellwarth
By Leisa Boley HellwarthI try to avoid repeating a topic, unless there is a new development. This column is an exception. The Mid-January 2024 column discussed the new Corporate Transparency Act, also known as Beneficial Ownership Information Reporting. This law mandates that all limited liability companies and corporations, created or registered before Jan.
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Aug 18, 2024 | 
ocj.com | Leisa Boley Hellwarth
By Leisa Boley HellwarthI love to read legal thrillers and watch courtroom dramas. These are wonderful forms of entertainment, but have little or nothing to do with the real world. I just read a case out of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Iowa that demonstrates what lawyers spend most of their time articulating and arguing about: definitions.
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Jul 17, 2024 | 
ocj.com | Leisa Boley Hellwarth
By Leisa Boley Hellwarth Legal battles for family farms gets messy. Here is a recap from Part 1. HFI was incorporated in Iowa in 1974, with George and Keith Hora serving as the initial directors. HFI owns 1,075 acres of land in or near Washington County, and it grew corn and soybeans at all times relevant to the litigation. Kurt and his wife, Heather, later formed HK Farms, Inc. They grow crops and feed swine from weaning to finishing.
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Jun 20, 2024 | 
ocj.com | Leisa Boley Hellwarth
By Leisa Boley Hellwarth Families are messy. Farming is messy. Litigation is messy. And on April 19, 2024, the Iowa Supreme Court issued a ruling in a shareholder derivative action that involved all of the above. A shareholder derivative case is a lawsuit brought by a shareholder or group of shareholders on behalf of the corporation against the corporations’ directors, officers and other third parties who breach their duties. In this matter, two brothers sued their father and brother.
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Apr 8, 2024 | 
ocj.com | Leisa Boley Hellwarth |Teresa Bjork |Bernadette Arehart
By Leisa Boley Hellwarth A rule is one of a set of explicit or understood regulations or principles governing conduct within a particular activity or sphere. An example is Rule 34, titled Killing of Game Animals, of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race that states, “in the event that an edible big game animal, i.e., moose, caribou, buffalo, is killed in defense of life or property, the musher must gut the animal and report the incident to a race official at the next checkpoint.
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Mar 17, 2024 | 
ocj.com | Leisa Boley Hellwarth |Shelly Detwiler
By Leisa Boley Hellwarth This little piggy went to market. This little piggy stayed home. This little piggy escaped to the neighbors,And never, ever made it back home. In Southwest Louisiana, on the evening of Aug. 29, 2017, Andrew Johnson was on his property. He lived next to a homestead/farm owned by Tony and Angela Battise. A 4-H hog, owned by the Battises, escaped its enclosure, attacked and struck him, knocking him to the ground.
