Hi bonanzajellybean,
Did this document start life as a Word 6.x/95/97 document? Such documents always did have 'footnote issues' - see:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/196720/EN-US
According to
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/291179/c, unchecking the 'Lay out footnotes like Word 6.x/95/97' should resolve things. If that keeps coming back, the document may have some corruption. Assuming that's the case:
1. Go to the end of the document and press Enter to create a new last paragraph.
2. Copy and paste everything except that new last paragraph into a new document.
3. Close the old document and save the new one over it.