Caitlin Summers was a correctional officer employed by the Missouri Department of Corrections until her termination in December 2022. Summers filed a claim for unemployment benefits, which was denied when the Division of Employment Security determined that Summers was terminated for work-related misconduct and was therefore ineligible. Summers appealed to the Division Appeals Tribunal, which affirmed the denial. Specifically, the Division found that “Summers was discharged for misconduct connected with work due to her failure to make regular patrols of and diligently observe her assigned area, which allowed an individual to escape custody by scaling the fence; and that such misconduct constituted negligence in such a high degree as to manifest culpability.” The Division further found that her assertion that “as a correctional officer, there was no expectation she was required to patrol her assigned area was not credible.”
Summers appealed again to the Division, which affirmed. Summers appealed again to the Missouri Court of Appeals and submitted a brief in support of her position.
The Court rejected Summers’ initial brief for violations of its rule governing the form and content of appellate briefs. Among other issues, her brief lacked specific page citations to the legal file or the transcript. The Court granted Summers additional time to file an amended, corrected brief and explained that failure to do so could result in the dismissal of her appeal. Summers filed an amended brief, which included one additional paragraph, but otherwise did not change any of the issues identified by the Court in her first brief.
The appellate court rejected her appeal, noting that the Court’s rule “plainly sets out the required contents of an appellant’s brief.” Next, it explained that appellate courts implicitly condone violations of rules by reiterating briefing requirements without imposing consequences, especially “where a party has been warned of deficiencies in her briefing and persists in repeating the same errors.” The Court clearly explained to Summers what was deficient with her initial brief, provided her additional time to correct those errors, and warned her that failure to do so could result in the dismissal of her appeal. Summers made no substantive effort to submit a compliant brief. The Court determined that dismissing Summers’ appeal was appropriate.
Summers v. Department of Corrections, WD 86411, 2024 WL 2712937 (Mo. Ct. App., 2024).