Ian Cooper and Laura Hemmer won an important appeal before the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit under Section 301 of the National Labor Relations Act. In Nemsky v. ConocoPhillips, et al., the plaintiff employee sued both his union and his employer (and firm client) ConocoPhillips Company, claiming that the union breached its duty of fair representation by failing to grieve his termination, and that ConocoPhillips breached the collective bargaining agreement by terminating him without cause.

The Court of Appeals held that there was evidence that the union failed to fairly represent the employee, but also held that ConocoPhillips had cause to terminate the employee, and thus had not breached the collective bargaining agreement. As a result of this conclusion, the Court of Appeals ruled in favor of both ConocoPhillips and the Union and dismissed the employee's suit. Ian Cooper argued the case before Judges Flaum, Wood and Tinder on June 4, 2009.  The Court issued its opinion on August 3, 2009.

Ian P. 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.

Laura E. Hemmer practices primarily in the areas of education law. She represents public entities with respect to employment and termination matters, special education issues, student discipline and student rights, civil rights and church/state issues. During law school, Laura served as a legal intern with the United States Attorney’s Office and the Missouri Attorney General’s Office.

Tueth, Keeney, Cooper, Mohan & Jackstadt P.C. has successfully represented a number of businesses, large and small, throughout the Midwest in labor and employment matters. Our broad range of experience includes employment discrimination litigation, wage-hour investigations and defense,  INS audits, affirmative action plans development and revision, and a variety of traditional labor matters.