Virginia Lawyers Weekly articles from December 2007

Virginia Lawyers Weekly archives from December 2007

Verdicts & Settlements December 3, 2007: Low-speed rearender breaks screw from earlier surgery.(Brief article)
December 3, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Plaintiff, a 55-year-old male, was rear-ended by the defendant at low speed about a month after undergoing a laminectomy. Plaintiff had a longstanding history of severe chronic back problems and had...

Verdicts & Settlements December 3, 2007: Lead poisoning case tried two decades after exposure.
December 3, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Plaintiff was exposed to lead paint in a rented Norfolk duplex in the mid-1980s when he was 2 years old. Tests then showed high levels of lead in his blood and flaking lead-based paint on the porch of...

Verdicts & Settlements December 3, 2007: Equifax fails to correct stolen identity information.
December 3, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff In 2000, plaintiff Robinson's Social Security number and identity were stolen by an identity thief who obtained the information from a database at an online prescription company where the thief worked....

Virginia Lawyers in the News: December 3, 2007.(Obituary)
December 3, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff The Richmond office of McGuire-Woods LLP has added three new associates. Jessica A. Brumberg and Virginia L.H. Nesbitt joined the firm's toxic tort and environmental litigation department....

Nuisance claim will not be preempted in biosolids case, rules Surry County Circuit judge.
December 3, 2007... Byline: Deborah Elkins Neighbors of a Surry County farm cannot sue for trespass for the farm's use of biosolids allegedly in violation of the farm's permit to recycle the biological waste, in a new ruling from a Surry County Circuit judge....

Millette appointed to Virginia Court of Appeals.(LeRoy F. Millette Jr.)
December 3, 2007... Byline: Alan Cooper Gov. Timothy M. Kaine has appointed Prince William County Circuit Judge LeRoy F. Millette Jr. to the Virginia Court of Appeals. Millette, 58, will succeed Judge James W. Benton Jr., who retired in October, on the...

Judge Henry Hudson shares tales from his many jobs held.(Interview)
December 3, 2007... Byline: Alan Cooper Henry E. Hudson has lots of success stories in his memoir of his work as a prosecutor and public official. But he begins "Quest for Justice: From Deputy Sheriff to Federal Judge and the Lessons Learned Along the...

U.S. Court of Appeals Case Summaries: December 3, 2007.
December 3, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Antitrust Limitations - Fraudulent Concealment - Inquiry Notice In this antitrust suit filed by GO Computer Inc., who alleged defendant Microsoft took a variety of anticompetitive actions to...

U.S. District Court VA Eastern Case Summaries: December 3, 2007.
December 3, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Civil Procedure Jurisdiction - Diversity - John Doe Defendants A plaintiff who has been granted leave to amend his complaint to add as defendants "John Does 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5" cannot seek...

Virginia Court of Appeals Case Summaries: December 3, 2007.
December 3, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Criminal Grand Larceny - BB Gun At defendant's trial for grand larceny in the theft of a paint sprayer from a home that was being remodeled, the trial court did not abuse its discretion by...

Virginia Circuit Court Case Summaries: December 3, 2007.
December 3, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Administrative Criminal - Sex Offender Registry - Ex Post Facto Challenge A defendant is required to register as a sex offender pursuant to Va. Code Sect. 9.1-902, and the circuit court...

Verdicts & Settlements December 3, 2007: Plaintiff suffers injuries in intersection crash.
December 3, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff This case arose out of a motor vehicle accident on April 15, 2002, in Crozet, Va. Plaintiff was a passenger in a Jeep Grand Cherokee that was stopped in the left turn lane at a red light on Route 250....

Verdicts & Settlements December 3, 2007: Credibility of defense expert attacked.
December 3, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff On Aug. 15, 2004, plaintiff, a 23-year-old woman, was driving north on Jefferson Davis Highway near Harrowgate Road in Chesterfield County, when the defendant, a 90-year old-man, suddenly pulled...

Verdicts & Settlements December 3, 2007: Herniation of four cervical discs caused by rearender.(Brief article)
December 3, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff On Dec. 11, 2004, the defendant rear-ended the plaintiff's vehicle, which was stopped on a secondary road because a truck was pulling out of a construction site. The defendant had just come around a...

Verdicts & Settlements December 3, 2007: 11-month-old in rig's sleeper dies when vehicle overturns.(Brief article)
December 3, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff On Nov. 24, 2006, the plaintiff's decedent, an 11-month-old girl, was a passenger in the sleeper section of a Freightliner tractor driven by her father. Decedent was spending the day with her father,...

Richmond-based LeClairRyan to merge with N.J.-based law firm.(New Jersey)(Seiden Wayne LLC)
December 10, 2007... Byline: Alan Cooper Richmond-based LeClairRyan will merge at the end of the year with a 45-lawyer firm with offices in Manhattan and Newark, N.J. Gary D. LeClair, chairman and co-founder of LeClairRyan, said Seiden Wayne LLC has "a...

U.S. Court of Appeals Case Summaries: December 10, 2007.
December 10, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Criminal Miranda Warning - Custody - Hospital Emergency Room A man who came to a hospital emergency room for treatment of a gunshot wound, and who told a police officer at the entrance to a...

U.S. District Court of Eastern Virginia Case Summaries: December 10, 2007.
December 10, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Consumer Protection 'Predatory Lending Scheme' - VCPA Violation In a homeowner's suit alleging a fraudulent scheme by defendants in which the homeowner conveyed title to her home but would...

U.S. District Court of Western Virginia Case Summaries: December 10, 2007.
December 10, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Bankruptcy Joint Tax Return - Income Tax Refund - Turnover - Ch. 7 A Chapter 7 debtor is ordered to turnover to the bankruptcy trustee his half of an income tax refund received with his...

Virginia Court of Appeals Case Summaries: December 10, 2007.
December 10, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Administrative DMAS - Residence FMV - Tax Assessment A circuit court erred in rejecting the determination of a hearing officer of the Department of Medical Assistance Services, that the...

Virginia Circuit Court Case Summaries: December 10, 2007.
December 10, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Criminal Threatening Calls - Gun Shop Owner - Public Intoxication A woman who made multiple telephone calls to the owner of land with a gun shop that purportedly sold a weapon to the student...

Verdicts & Settlements December 10, 2007: Virginia personal injury suit leads to $1.6M verdict.
December 10, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff On October 8, 2004, plaintiff, a 51-year-old male, was driving a Chevrolet Blazer on Interstate 95 when was rear-ended by a delivery truck with a gross weight of 18,000 pounds. Plaintiff lost...

Verdicts & Settlements December 10, 2007: Virginia jury delivers defense verdict in collision suit.(Brief article)
December 10, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Plaintiff halted at a stop sign in front of a working cement truck. Impact was modest, but plaintiff claimed severe, instant back, shoulder and leg pain. He did not request emergency transport....

Verdicts & Settlements December 10, 2007: Virginia jury rules for defendant in med-mal case.(medical malpractice)
December 10, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Dr. Moskowitz, a urologist in Marion, recommended and the patient agreed to have a kidney stone broken up with electrohydraulic lithotripsy (EHL). During the course of the procedure a small rent or...

Commentary: Is remote deposit right for your firm?
December 10, 2007... Byline: DeAnn Pangburn Some have called Remote Deposit "the most important development the U.S. banking industry has seen in years." More importantly, its impact on your firm has already occurred in ways you might not have noticed - the...

VSB dismisses ethics charge against Bryant.(Virginia Beach Common)(Virginia State Bar)(Harvey L. Bryant III)
December 10, 2007... Byline: Alan Cooper The attorney for Virginia Beach Commonwealth's Attor-ney Harvey L. Bryant III had a succinct explanation for the dismissal of an ethics complaint filed against Bryant by the city's nine circuit judges. "It is not...

Commentary: Get to know these three fonts: Arial, Courier, Verdana.
December 10, 2007... Byline: Alan Cooper The issues are complicated and you need every one of the 50 pages the Supreme Court of Virginia allows for an appellate brief. You choose the font that the court uses for its opinions, Courier, even though it looks...

Prior plea agreement bars murder charge in Virginia.
December 10, 2007... Byline: Deborah Elkins A drug defendant's murder conviction has been reversed because his earlier plea agreement barred his prosecution for the murder. Interpreting language in a standard plea agreement, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of...

Best of 2007 cases reported by Virginia Lawyers Weekly.(List)
December 17, 2007... Byline: Deborah Elkins The 2006 year-end summary of cases reported by Virginia Lawyers Weekly spilled a lot of ink (or popped a lot of pixels) cataloging federal criminal sentences handed down by Virginia courts as they began implementing...

Virginia Lawyers in the News: December 17, 2007.
December 17, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Three attorneys have joined the Richmond law firm of CowanGates PC. Ernest P. "Rusty" Gates Jr. joined as partner and focuses his practice on criminal, traffic, personal injury, family law, real...

Va. Chief Justice Hassell says courts should back learning English.(Leroy Rountree Hassell Sr.)
December 17, 2007... Byline: Alan Cooper The Judicial Council of Virginia has balked at a proposal by the Commission on Virginia Courts in the 21st Century for the court system to be more accommodating of those for whom English is a second language. In...

Vienna auto dealer did not have insurance coverage for Consumer Act lawsuit.
December 17, 2007... Byline: Deborah Elkins A Vienna car dealership had no liability coverage for a consumer protection suit it settled with a buyer who claimed she was defrauded by a vehicle lease with the dealer. Jessica Kittrell alleged that when she...

U.S. District Court VA Eastern Case Summaries: December 17, 2007.
December 17, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Civil Procedure Discovery - Motion To Compel - Expert Witnesses - Sanctions In this litigation between plaintiff insurance company and defendant, Cockrell's Marine Railway Inc., the district...

Virginia Court of Appeals Case Summaries: December 17, 2007.
December 17, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Criminal Videotaped Confession Replay - Murder Of Wife On appeal of defendant's conviction for killing his wife and burying her in the backyard of their home, any error by the trial court in...

Virginia Circuit Court Case Summaries: December 17, 2007.
December 17, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Domestic Relations Custody Change - Primary Physical Custody A circuit court denies the motion of a father with joint legal custody and visitation to obtain primary physical custody of his...

Verdicts & Settlements December 17, 2007: Patient has leg weakness, testicular pain after surgery.
December 17, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff The defendant is a fellowship-trained orthopedic spinal surgeon. The plaintiff presented to the defendant in October 2003 complaining of low back and leg pain, which he rated as a 9-10 on a pain scale...

Verdicts & Settlements December 17, 2007: Customer injures ankle in parking lot fall.(Brief article)
December 17, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff The plaintiff slipped on ice in a parking lot after dropping his car off for repairs. While he was lying on the ground, the manager for West Broad Honda told the plaintiff she had de-iced the entire...

Verdicts & Settlements December 17, 2007: Restaurant customer injured in collapse of chair.(Brief article)
December 17, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff In March 2000, the plaintiff sat in a chair at the Burger King located inside the Washington Dulles Airport after ordering a meal before she and he mother were to board their plane for Las Vegas. The...

Verdicts & Settlements December 17, 2007: 36-year-old has heart attack because given too much drug.
December 17, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff The 36-year-old plaintiff went to the Martha Jefferson Outpatient Surgery Center for routine plantar wart removal. As part of the procedure, she was injected with a solution of epinephrine to control...

Verdicts & Settlements December 17, 2007: Employee murders two co-workers in Harrisonburg office.
December 17, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Bonnie Sue H. Crump, Gary Allen Gibson and Brewer E. Hoover, Jr. were employed at the American HomePatient office in Harrisonburg. In early 2006, Hoover became romantically infatuated with Crump, who...

Verdicts & Settlements December 17, 2007: Embolism found in leg after calf strain diagnosis.(Brief article)
December 17, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff At approximately 2:35 a.m., the plaintiff went to the emergency department at Rockingham Memorial Hospital. He reported that had felt something pull in his right calf while climbing a bank at 11 a.m....

Verdicts & Settlements December 17, 2007: Collision at red light causes severe brain injury.
December 17, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Plaintiff is a 57-year-old woman who taught third grade in Charlottesville for 33 years. From 1999 to June 2006, plaintiff worked a second full-time night job in order to put her three children through...

Verdicts & Settlements December 17, 2007: Woman suffers brain injury, wreck caused by drunken driver.
December 17, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Vickie Johnson-Rankin was a passenger in a large pickup truck when a drunken driver crossed to her side of a neighborhood street and struck the truck head on in Stuarts Draft in June 2004. The...

Best of 2007.(List)
December 17, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Publisher's Note: Virginia Lawyers Weekly started The VLW Blog back in March. Since then, our editors have logged almost 300 posts. In this section, we've compiled some of the best items of the year....

Best of 2007 cases reported by Virginia Lawyers Weekly.(List)
December 17, 2007... Byline: Deborah Elkins The 2006 year-end summary of cases reported by Virginia Lawyers Weekly spilled a lot of ink (or popped a lot of pixels) cataloging federal criminal sentences handed down by Virginia courts as they began implementing...

Letter to the Editor.(Letter to the editor)
December 17, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Dear Editor: I'm writing to those of you who offer free initial consultations to prospective clients in order to determine whether you can help them. I want to persuade you to stop. It...

U.S. Court of Appeals Case Summaries: December 17, 2007.
December 17, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Administrative Medicaid Reimbursement - Provider's Claim - Forum- Selection Clause Although a healthcare provider has a private right of action under 42 U.S.C.Sect. 1983 against state...

U.S. District Court VA Eastern Case Summaries: December 17, 2007.
December 17, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Civil Procedure Discovery - Motion To Compel - Expert Witnesses - Sanctions In this litigation between plaintiff insurance company and defendant, Cockrell's Marine Railway Inc., the district...

Virginia Court of Appeals Case Summaries: December 17, 2007.
December 17, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Criminal Videotaped Confession Replay - Murder Of Wife On appeal of defendant's conviction for killing his wife and burying her in the backyard of their home, any error by the trial court in...

Virginia Circuit Court Case Summaries: December 17, 2007.
December 17, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Domestic Relations Custody Change - Primary Physical Custody A circuit court denies the motion of a father with joint legal custody and visitation to obtain primary physical custody of his...

Verdicts & Settlements December 17, 2007: Restaurant customer injured in collapse of chair.
December 17, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff In March 2000, the plaintiff sat in a chair at the Burger King located inside the Washington Dulles Airport after ordering a meal before she and he mother were to board their plane for Las Vegas. The...

Verdicts & Settlements December 17, 2007: 36-year-old has heart attack because given too much drug.
December 17, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff The 36-year-old plaintiff went to the Martha Jefferson Outpatient Surgery Center for routine plantar wart removal. As part of the procedure, she was injected with a solution of epinephrine to control...

Verdicts & Settlements December 17, 2007: Employeee murders two co-workers in Harrisonburg office.
December 17, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Bonnie Sue H. Crump, Gary Allen Gibson and Brewer E. Hoover, Jr. were employed at the American HomePatient office in Harrisonburg. In early 2006, Hoover became romantically infatuated with Crump, who...

Verdicts & Settlements December 17, 2007: Collision at red light causes severe brain injury.
December 17, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Plaintiff is a 57-year-old woman who taught third grade in Charlottesville for 33 years. From 1999 to June 2006, plaintiff worked a second full-time night job in order to put her three children through...

4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals says SEC e-filing confers venue in fraud case.(Securities and Exchange Commission)
December 24, 2007... Byline: Deborah Elkins A Las Vegas executive faces a federal criminal charge in Alexandria alleging that he inflated figures in a federal reporting form filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The defendant, CEO of a...

Company recovers $4M of bonus paid to top exec.(The United Company)
December 24, 2007... Byline: Alan Cooper Jeffrey J. Keenan certainly got off to a good start in his first year as president and chief operating officer of The United Company. He sold one of the privately held company's assets in 2003 for $322 million and...

Judge: Contempt motion on support issue must be signed by a lawyer.(Kimberly J. Daniel)
December 24, 2007... Byline: Alan Cooper Staff members of the Virginia Division of Child Support Enforcement no longer are signing motions to hold in contempt parents who are delinquent in their support obligations. The decision to abandon the practice was...

Hanover County Circuit Judge John Richard Alderman won't seek new term.
December 24, 2007... Byline: Alan Cooper Hanover County Circuit Judge John Richard Alderman apparently will retire next month rather than seek reelection to a second eight-year term. Alderman was the only one of 41 judges up for reappointment who did not...

U.S. Court Of Appeals Case Summaries: December 24, 2007.
December 24, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Bankruptcy Airline Bankruptcy - Pension Termination - Proof Of Claim A retired U.S. Airways pilot has waited too late to file a proof of claim alleging during debtor airline's second bankruptcy...

U.S. District Court VA Eastern Case Summaries: December 24, 2007.(Virginia)
December 24, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Bankruptcy Fee Disgorgement - Default Judgment - Unauthorized Practice A defendant who advertises his services as a bankruptcy advisor online at www.allexperts.com, and who has assisted a...

U.S. District Court VA Western Case Summaries: December 24, 2007.(Virginia)
December 24, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Contract Oral Employment Contract - Incentive Bonus - Statute Of Frauds A former executive for a multi-million dollar, two-shareholder company in southwest Virginia, whose early efforts to sell...

Virginia Court Of Appeals Case Summaries: December 24, 2007.
December 24, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Criminal Child Sexual Abuse - Confrontation Clause - Closed- Circuit TV At defendant's trial for raping and otherwise sexually abusing his five-year-old daughter, the trial court did not err in...

Virginia Circuit Court Case Summaries: December 24, 2007.
December 24, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff Consumer Protection Modular Housing - Warranties Plaintiffs who are suing over alleged defects in modular housing purchased from defendants, who are entitled to sue under Virginia UCC...

Verdicts & Settlements December 24, 2007: Plaintiff suffers complications from surgery.
December 24, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff This case involved a 43-year-old female, Wendelin McCormack, who had a medical history significant for morbid obesity, osteoarthritis of her knees and glaucoma when she decided to proceed with a...

Verdicts & Settlements December 24, 2007: Motorist claims injuries from low-impact crash.(Sandra J. Beyers )
December 24, 2007... Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff The plaintiff initially visited her family doctor on the day of this very low-impact accident complaining only of whiplash symptoms, and she sought no treatment during the entire next month. A month...