St. Louis Business Journal by Diana Barr, Associate Editor

Date: Tuesday, September 25, 2012, 4:47pm CDT

A wrongful death suit against August Busch IV over the death of Adrienne Martin will remain in a Cape Girardeau circuit court, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.

Diana Barr

Associate Editor- St. Louis Business Journal

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The Missouri Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld a lower court decision in July that a wrongful death suit against former Anheuser-Busch CEO August Busch IV should remain in Cape Girardeau.

August Busch IV was sued in March 2011 by the then 8-year-old son of his former girlfriend, Adrienne Martin, who was found dead in Busch’s Huntleigh mansion in December 2010 from an accidental drug overdose. The case, filed in St. Louis County Circuit Court, was immediately transferred to a court in Cape Girardeau, the home of Martin’s son and his father, Dr. Kevin Martin, who was acting as a guardian plaintiff.

Busch had reached a $ 1.5 million settlement in the wrongful death suit, but the settlement had been delayed indefinitely while Adrienne Martin’s parents, Christine Trampler and George “Larry” Eby, appealed to join the suit as plaintiffs.

Trampler and Eby were allowed to intervene as plaintiffs in the suit in December 2011 by the Missouri Court of Appeals. In April this year, the Missouri Supreme Court refused to hear Busch IV’s request to reconsider adding Martin’s parents to the suit.

Trampler and Eby then sought to move the suit back to St. Louis County, with Eby later withdrawing that request. In a July ruling, Circuit Judge William Syler in Cape Girardeau refused to move the case. Trampler took it to the state Supreme Court, whose ruling Tuesday now keeps the case in Cape Girardeau.

Syler is next expected schedule the matter for approval on a settlement as well as an apportionment to Christine Trampler, according to John Heisserer, one of the Cape Girardeau attorneys representing Kevin Martin. Heisserer declined to disclose details of a possible settlement, but said that an understanding on the matter had been reached by Kevin Martin and his son, as well as by Eby.

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