Virginia Lawyers Weekly articles from April 2004

Virginia Lawyers Weekly archives from April 2004

Fairfax Circuit Court Rules Court Has Jurisdiction Over eBay Car Seller.
April 5, 2004... Byline: Paul Fletcher A Virginia circuit court has jurisdiction over a Connecticut-based auto dealer who sold a car to a Virginia man through eBay, the Internet auction site, a Fairfax Circuit judge has ruled in a case of apparent first...

Virginia Court of Appeals Case Summaries: April 5, 2004.
April 5, 2004... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Civil Rights First Amendment - Internet Speech - Va. Statute A Virginia statute that purports to regulate Internet content that is "harmful" to juveniles violates the First Amendment and the...

Virginia Court Case Summaries: April 5, 2004.
April 5, 2004... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Attorneys Sanctions Under Rule 11 - 'Ghost' Pleading - Local Counsel Rule Where plaintiff's lawyer, who is based in North Carolina, sued defendant employer claiming the employer's ban on...

Virginia Court Case Summaries: April 5, 2004.
April 5, 2004... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Consumer Protection TILA - Auto Purchase - Disclosure - Theft Protection Charge A car buyer's truth-in-lending claim survives summary judgment, in a lawsuit alleging that defendant dealer's...

Virginia Court of Appeals Case Summaries: April 5, 2004.
April 5, 2004... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Criminal Assault On Officer - Ability To Harm - Pointing Finger Where defendant was a passenger in a vehicle stopped for a traffic stop, and the police officer thought defendant had a weapon in...

Supreme Court of Virginia To Consider UPL Rule On Clerks.
April 5, 2004... Byline: Brent Baldwin For as long as anyone can remember, pro se litigants have been asking questions of court clerks. Clerks have been able to respond that they do not practice law and cannot provide legal advice. But a new...

Portsmouth Circuit Court Hit-And-Run Racer Can Be Sued for Punitives.
April 5, 2004... Byline: Deborah Elkins A driver injured in a rear-end accident when two cars allegedly raced down a Portsmouth street can sue one of the John Doe drivers, but not the other, for punitive damages, a Portsmouth Circuit judge has ruled. ...

2004 Tort Reform Effort in Va. Ultimately Produces Little.
April 5, 2004... Byline: Matthew Philips A concerted effort in the 2004 General Assembly to reform Virginia's tort system, though producing some incremental procedural changes, largely failed to enact any of the substantive reforms originally sought. ...

Virginia Circuit Court Case Summaries: April 5, 2004.
April 5, 2004... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Civil Practice Declaratory Judgment - Insurance Coverage - Student Pilot Where plaintiffs' decedent was a student pilot aboard an aircraft piloted by a flight instructor employed by defendant...

Virginia Circuit Court Case Summaries: April 12, 2004.
April 12, 2004... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Civil Practice Personal Jurisdiction - E- Bay Auction - Car Sale A Virginia circuit court has personal jurisdiction over a Connecticut-based auto dealer who sold a car to a Virginia man through...

Verdicts & Settlements April 12, 2004: Med-Mal suit settles for $175,000.
April 12, 2004... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff A 29-year-old female underwent laparoscopic right salpingo-oophorectomy with lysis of adhesions (removal of painful ovary and release of scar tissue). The patient had a history of extensive prior...

Verdicts & Settlements April 12, 2004: Norfolk jury awards defense verdict in auto negligence case.
April 12, 2004... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff This case was consolidated and tried together with two other cases against the same defendant arising out of the same automobile accident. Defendant Decker's vehicle came to a complete stop at a red...

Verdicts & Settlements April 12, 2004: Petersburg jury awards $175K to auto accident plaintiff.
April 12, 2004... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff The plaintiff was a front-seat passenger in a tractor-trailer operated by her husband. According to an independent eyewitness, an accident occurred when the defendant passed and cut off the...

Garnett To Lead Va. Trial Lawyers Assn., Focus On 'The People'.
April 12, 2004... Byline: Brent Baldwin When H. Duncan Garnett Jr. was just a boy in the small town of Denbigh, he was already a lawyer in-the-making. His father was a career prosecutor and eventual circuit court judge in Central Virginia, and the...

Virginia Court of Appeals Case Summaries: April 12, 2004.
April 12, 2004... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Criminal Murder Conspiracy - Limitations - Capital Crime Although the lower court did not actually impose the death penalty in the capital cases in which defendant was convicted, for the 1989...

Virginia Court Case Summaries: April 12, 2004.
April 12, 2004... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Social Security Back Disorder - Daily Activity Where the administrative law judge relied on an assessment of claimant's residual functional capacity that examined little more than claimant's...

Anderson To Become The President-Elect Of The Va. State Bar.
April 12, 2004... Byline: Brent Baldwin Roanoke lawyer Phillip V. Anderson was the only candidate to file a petition for president-elect of the Virginia State Bar by last month's deadline. He will assume that office at the VSB Annual Meeting in June,...

Richmond, Roanoke Firms Plan To Merge.
April 12, 2004... Byline: Brent Baldwin The Richmond-based law firm of LeClair Ryan and the Roanoke firm of Flippin, Densmore, Morse and Jessee announced a plan to merge last week. The newly merged firm will be the fifth-largest in Virginia, with a...

Norfolk Circuit Court Rules Non-Solicit Agreement Not Renewed By Rehire.
April 12, 2004... Byline: Paul Fletcher Although a service technician quit work at an HVAC company to move to Costa Rica, then resumed working for them after he returned to the U.S. three months later, the non-solicitation agreement he signed expired two...

Virginia Bankruptcy Court Case Summaries: April 12, 2004.
April 12, 2004... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Bankruptcy Dischargeability Of Debt -Student Loan - Ch. 7 - Undue Hardship - Disabled Child Although the permanent disability of debtor's nine-year-old daughter, who suffers from Pfeiffer...

Three Va. Appeals Court Judges Provide Tips On Persuasion.
April 12, 2004... Byline: Paul Fletcher How does a lawyer succeed when taking an appeal up to the Virginia Court of Appeals? Be prepared. Be accurate. Be brief. Be clear. If you can do all that, "you will succeed far more often than...

Virginia Bankruptcy Court Case Summaries: April 12, 2004.
April 12, 2004... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Bankruptcy Executory Contract - Separate Order - Ch. 11 Where a chapter 11 debtor, who licensed hypnosis programs, filed a motion to reject certain executory contracts, and sent adequate notice...

Virginia Court of Appeals Case Summaries: April 12, 2004.
April 12, 2004... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Search & Seizure Vehicle Impoundment - Inventory Search - Drug Discovery Where defendant could not produce proof of ownership of the vehicle or a valid driver's license when he was stopped at...

Verdicts & Settlements April 12, 2004: Fairfax Negligence Case Settled For $2 Million.
April 12, 2004... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff The plaintiff, a part owner of a pool service company, was injured on May 26, 2000, in the Fairfax Station area of Fairfax County when an overweight dump truck slid down a hill backwards, crushing the...

4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Rules Employee Called 'Too Old' Can Try Age Bias Case.
April 19, 2004... Byline: Deborah Elkins A 56-year-old casket trimmer's allegations about his employer's age-related comments when the employer fired him can get the employee past summary judgment to try his age discrimination case in federal court, the 4th...

Virginia Court Case Summaries: April 19, 2004.
April 19, 2004... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Administrative Medicare Reimbursement - Inpatient Acute Care -'Disproportionate Share Adjustment' The Secretary of Health & Human Service's interpretation of an ambiguous regulation, which...

Virginia Court Case Summaries: April 19, 2004.
April 19, 2004... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Civil Practice Personal Jurisdiction - Venue - Copyright Infringement Registering a company with the Virginia State Corporation Commission and appointing an agent for service of process within...

Virginia Court of Appeals Case Summaries: April 19, 2004.
April 19, 2004... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Administrative Apprenticeship Program - Deregistration - Appeals A trial court erred in dismissing a steel company's challenge to deregistration of the company's apprenticeship program under...

Trend Alert.
April 19, 2004... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Remember the fiberglass pig that a Stafford barbecue joint owner wanted to put on his restaurant earlier this year? Seems like we got a minor trend going on. Last week out in Alliance, Ohio, a...

Va. State Bar Standing Committee On Legal Ethics Opines Covers Serving Two Criminal Clients At Odds.
April 19, 2004... Byline: Brent Baldwin A lawyer who represents a man who bought a gun to protect himself from a second man - who is also his client - has an irreconcilable conflict of interest, the Virginia State Bar Standing Committee on Legal Ethics has...

Virginia Circuit Court Case Summaries: April 19, 2004.
April 19, 2004... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Employment Contract - 'No Piracy' Agreement - Employee Rehire Although defendant, a heating and cooling service technician, may have been subject to a "No Piracy Agreement" he had signed prior...

Sing...Sing A Song For Virginia.
April 19, 2004... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Despite six years of work by a state panel, prospects for selecting a new state song are fading. For those you who came in late: In 1998, "Carry Me Back to Ole Virginny" was abandoned as the...

Virginia Lawyers In The News: April 19, 2004.
April 19, 2004... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Allison W. Anders and Ann J. Premer have become associates at the Virginia Beach firm of McKenry, Dancigers, Warner, Dawson & Lake PC. A 1996 graduate of Old Dominion University, Anders earned her...

That's A Lot of Pop In Virginia.
April 19, 2004... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff The Sodas-in-Schools controversy, reported on several prior occasions in this column, is back, thanks to a new study that made FOIA requests for the vending contracts of local Virginia school divisions....

Richmond Firm Develops New Model of Firm Administration.
April 19, 2004... Byline: Brent Baldwin The lawyers who founded the Richmond law firm of Macaulay & Burtch P.C. believe that they have hit upon a new, winning model on how to run a law firm. At the firm: Support staff is almost non-existent. ...

Relocation of Child to S.C. Allowed by Va. Appeals Court.
April 19, 2004... Byline: Paul Fletcher The Virginia Court of Appeals has allowed a mother who moved her daughter from Northern Virginia to South Carolina to relocate the girl after all. Citing a "change in circumstances," the court reached a different...

U.S. District Court Rules Doctor Not Negligent, Still Must Try Claim.
April 26, 2004... Byline: Paul Fletcher Even though a judge granted a doctor summary judgment on the issue of the his negligence in a medical-malpractice case, the doctor still may be liable, a federal judge in Big Stone Gap has ruled. The judge said...

Virginia Court Case Summaries: April 26, 2004.
April 26, 2004... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Criminal Burglary - Storehouse Breaking - Backyard Shed Although defendant sold items discovered missing from a homeowner's locked shed on a day the homeowner had been away on vacation,...

Va. Gov. Warner Signs Bill Creating Insurance Funds for Docs.
April 26, 2004... Byline: Brent Baldwin Despite "misgivings" about the state competing with the private sector, Gov. Mark R. Warner has signed a bill that will make Virginia the only state in the nation where doctors and hospitals can seek malpractice...

Fairfax Circuit Court Rules Owners Can Sue Roofing Company For Toxic Mold.
April 26, 2004... Byline: Deborah Elkins Homeowners who allege toxic mold forced them to move out of their townhouse can sue the roofer and their homeowners insurance company for their personal injuries, a Fairfax Circuit judge has ruled. The defendants...

Virginia Court of Appeals Case Summaries: April 26, 2004.
April 26, 2004... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Admiralty COGSA - Limits Of Liability Where a mobile drilling rig being shipped from Baltimore to a port in Chile was severely damaged after it was offloaded at an intermediate port in...

Virginia Court Case Summaries: April 26, 2004.
April 26, 2004... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Admiralty Inconsistent Verdict - Injured Seaman A seaman who sued for injuries allegedly suffered as a seaman on a vessel engaged in navigation cannot get the jury verdict for defendant set...

Gains Just Edge Losses At State's '75 Largest' in Va.
April 26, 2004... Byline: Matthew Philips The number of large firms in Virginia that gained lawyers in 2003 was just barely ahead of the number that lost legal talent, according the data compiled in the Virginia Lawyers Weekly's 16th Annual "Largest Law...

Virginia Court Case Summaries: April 26, 2004.
April 26, 2004... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Medical Malpractice Surgeon Liability - Nurse- Anesthetist - Hospital Policy Where no anesthesiologist was present at the hospital when defendant performed urological surgery on decedent, but a...

Virginia Circuit Court Case Summaries: April 26, 2004.
April 26, 2004... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Administrative University Tuition - Dental School - Resident Status A state university's residency appeals committee did not err in concluding that petitioner is not entitled to in-state...