A special event celebrating the U.S. Constitution will be conducted at Anderson University at 2 p.m. Thursday in the lobby of Reardon Auditorium.

At that time, the Indiana Court of Appeals will hear oral argument on a pending case, Caesar’s Riverboat Casino, LLC v. Genevieve M. Kephart. A three-judge panel of Judge Paul Mathias of Allen County, Judge Terry Crone of St. Joseph’s County, and Judge Carr Darden of Marion County will hear this case. The public is invited to attend. Normal court rules of decorum will apply.

On March 18, 2006, Kephart entered a casino owned by Caesar’s, where she lost $125,000 gambling in one evening. When the six counter checks Kephart wrote to Caesar’s were returned for insufficient funds, Caesar’s sued to recover the amount owed. Kephart filed a counter-claim alleging that Caesar’s knew that she suffered from a compulsive gambling disorder and owed a duty to her to refrain from enticing her to frequent their casino. The trial court denied Caesar’s motion to dismiss Kephart’s counter-claim, and Caesar’s appealed.

The case for the appellant will be argued by Gene F. Price and Steven P. Langdon of New Albany, and the appellee’s case will be argued by Terry Noffsinger of Evansville.

Each side will be given 30 minutes to argue its case. The judges will ask questions during the argument and take the case under advisement. A written opinion will be issued soon thereafter. The judges will be available for question and answers after the oral arguments. The Code of Judicial Conduct prohibits the judges from answering any questions about the case, but they can respond to general inquiries about the legal system.

While July 4 is the nation’s birthday, Sept. 17 is the birthday of the government, the date in 1787 on which delegates to the Philadelphia Convention completed and signed the U.S. Constitution. The ideas on which America was founded — commitments to the rule of law, limited government and the ideals of liberty, equality and justice — are embodied in the Constitution, the oldest written constitution of any nation on Earth. Constitution Day is intended to celebrate not only the birthday of the government, but the ideas that make people Americans. The United States Congress designated Sept. 17 as Constitution Day.