A recent Missouri Supreme Court case is a reminder of how important it is to pay attention to details. Thus, in Estate of Neil J. Maune v. Marcus Raichle, Jr. and The Maune Raichle Law Firm (Missouri Supreme Court No. 100942, decided November 4, 2025), the Supreme Court based its decision on how the parties signed an operating agreement. In doing so, the Supreme Court ordered the Circuit Court decision be vacated and the case remanded to the Circuit Court to sustain the motion to compel arbitration.
Unfortunately, the case arose out of the untimely death of Neil J. Maune, a prominent trial attorney and managing partner of the law firm of Maune, Raichle, Hartley, French & Mudd, LLC. According to his obituary, Neil was born and raised on a small farm in Washington, MO. He attended the University of Notre Dame, where he played football, starting as an offensive guard all four years from 1979 to 1983. After college, Neil was drafted by the Dallas Cowboys. The money he earned in the NFL provided him with a nest egg to continue his education at Notre Dame where he earned a law degree and graduated cum laude.
Maune then founded a law firm in St. Louis which focused on Mesothelioma cases, eventually growing to 400 employees and 11 offices.
The Supreme Court case involving Mr. Maune arose out of a complex set of facts involving his early partner, Marcus Raichle. Maune and Raichle formed The Maune and Raichle Law Firm (MR Law) as a general partnership. Unfortunately, they had no written partnership agreement governing their business relationship and the name “The Maune and Raichle Law Firm” was merely a fictitious name by which they did business. In August 2009, MR Law acquired two renewable term life insurance policies on each of the lives of the two partners. MR Law was designated as the owner and beneficiary for both life insurance policies. Each policy had an initial death benefit of 10 million dollars.
Subsequently, on or about January 2011, Maune and Raichle created the law firm of Maune Raiche Hartley French & Mudd, LLC (“MRHFM”) with three individuals, namely Hartley, French & Mudd. All five persons signed an operating agreement (”OA”) which governed the new law firm. All of the five individuals signed the OA twice “once under the heading ‘Managers’ (individually and on behalf of the company)” and again under the heading “Members’ (individually and on behalf of the company).”
The OA contained an arbitration clause whereby the five members agreed to arbitrate “all claims arising out of or related to this agreement or a breach hereof” which were otherwise not resolved by negotiation or voluntary mediation. This arbitration clause in the OA incorporated by reference the commercial arbitration rules of the American Arbitration Association. One of those rules states that arbitrator could resolve disputes over the scope of the arbitration agreement in the OA.
Once the OA was signed, the new law firm took over the existing clients of MR Law (which continued to exist but did not represent any clients) and also took over the premium payments of the insurance policies insuring the lives of Maune and Raichle. Although the new law firm MRHFM, was named as the beneficiary of Raichle’s life insurance policy, for some mysterious reason Maune’s policy was not amended and MR Law continued to own and be the named beneficiary for Maune’s life insurance policy.
Maune died on July 16, 2023. As a result of his death, the 10 million dollar life insurance proceeds was paid to MR Law, the inactive general partnership where the only remaining partner was Raichle.
Thereafter in January 2024, the Estate of Maune filed a lawsuit against MR Law and Raichle alleging that the 10 million dollar life insurance proceeds from Maune’s policy should have been paid to MRHFM because that company had been paying the premiums for the policy for over ten years.
According to the Estate’s Petition, if such policy proceeds had been paid to MRHFM, the OA mandates that those funds must be used to pay the Estate the value of Maune’s ownership interest in MRHFM and if those proceeds were ultimately the property of MR Law instead, the MRHFM law firm argues that those proceeds being unavailable to MRHFM law limits the Estate’s share of Maune’s ownership to a maximum of $1,000,000.
Shortly after the Estate filed the petition, MR Law and Raichle filed a Motion to Stay the proceedings and compel arbitration as set forth in the OA.
The Estate objected to the Motion on the grounds that MR Law, one of the defendants, is not bound by the arbitration agreement in the OA because it did not sign the OA. According to the Estate, while both Maune and Raichle signed the OA, they did not do so in their capacities as partners of MR Law. In addition, the Estate argued that the Estate’s claims did not fall within the scope of the arbitration agreement contained in the OA.
The Circuit Court agreed with the Estate on the grounds that MR Law is not a party to the OA.
As noted earlier, on appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court, the Supreme Court vacated the Circuit Court’s Order and remanded the case mandating the lower court grant the Motion to Compel Arbitration. In reversing the Circuit Court, the Supreme Court stated that under Missouri Law, a general partnership has no legal existence apart from its respective general partners. Such result stems from the “aggregate theory of partnership;” which Missouri law follows. Under that theory, a general partnership is simply the partners acting together as individuals. Because Maune and Raichle were the only two partners of MR Law, their respective signatures on the OA were sufficient to bind the general partnership because they signed the OA not only in their capacities as members and managers of the company but also “Individually”. By signing “individually” it caused MR Law (composed in the “aggregate” of Maune and Raichle) to be bound by the arbitration clause in the OA.
In a related issue on appeal, the Supreme Court reasoned that when an arbitration agreement incorporates by reference the American Arbitration Association rules, one such rule also includes questions as to the scope of this agreement and that whether the current dispute falls within such agreement is up to the arbitrators to decide.
The importance of paying attention to details was clearly present in this case. First, the failure to change the beneficiary of Maune’s policy clearly led to the dispute. Consequently, following up to make sure document changes have been made is critical. Had Maune’s policy beneficiary designation been changed to MRHFM, this litigation would not have occurred. Second, the importance of how one signs a document was the deciding factor in this case. By signing in their respective “individual capacities,” this caused the arbitrator clause to come into play. Had they signed only in their respective representative capacities as members and managers of MRHFM, then the Supreme Court may have ruled differently.