Search & Seizure – Illegal Detention – Parked Car 
By Deborah Elkins
Published: September 22, 2008
An officer patrolling behind a shopping center at night who observed defendant and a companion in a car parked behind a store, with an open beer bottle in the car console, detained defendant by seizing his identification, and the marijuana found in a jacket pocket in a consent search of the vehicle is suppressed by [...]
Domestic Relations – Marriage Affirmance
By Deborah Elkins
Published: September 22, 2008
A Fairfax Circuit Court denies a “Petition to Affirm a Marriage” filed by a couple that underwent an Islamic religious marriage ceremony performed by a religious authority, but who had no civil marriage license.
Petitioners ask that their marriage be affirmed pursuant to Va. Code §§ 20-90 and 20-31. Reading those two statutes together, a marriage [...]
Anti-spam law struck for being ‘overbroad’
By Alan Cooper
Published: September 22, 2008
It’s unusual for the Supreme Court of Virginia to take a second look at a decided case.
It’s highly unusual for the high court to switch from a 4-3 affirmance to a unanimous reversal of a criminal conviction. The high-profile subject is spammer Jeremy Jaynes, and the reversal stemmed from a second look at a recent [...]
Search & Seizure – Residential Visit – K-9 Officer – ‘Drug House’ Tip
By Deborah Elkins
Published: September 22, 2008
An officer who responded with a K-9 drug dog to a Newport News home said to be a “known drug house” did not conduct an illegal search when the dog made a “positive alert” at the home’s front door, and the alert and the “numerous empty corner bags” commonly used to package illegal drugs in [...]
Employment – Noncompete – Employment Recruiter – Functional Limitation
By Deborah Elkins
Published: September 22, 2008
A skilled-trade broker in the Hampton Roads area cannot enforce its noncompete against a former manager, because the two-year agreement “is unlimited in both its geographic and functional scope,” a Chesapeake Circuit Court says.
Defendant formerly worked as Marine Division Manager in defendant’s Virginia Beach office.
Plaintiff’s counsel conceded at oral argument that agreements without time, geographical [...]
Independent assessment a key to dealing with disaster
By Virginia Lawyers Weekly
Published: September 22, 2008
The collapse of the building at Chester Village earlier this month is a stark reminder that construction can be a dangerous business. A worker on the Chesterfield County structure was killed when the second floor of the building collapsed onto the first.
While a disaster such as that one is rare, an owner or contractor [...]
Domestic Relations – Spousal Support – Imputed Income
By Deborah Elkins
Published: September 22, 2008
Although husband, who deserted the parties’ 22-year marriage, presented evidence wife could earn as much as $13,000 per year, the Court of Appeals saysthe divorce court did not err in declining to impute income to wife, who suffered from a congenital heart condition, had only a high-school education and had not worked outside the home [...]
No discovery of hospital policies, Fairfax judge says
By Deborah Elkins
Published: September 22, 2008
A woman who alleged she partially delivered her stillborn baby at home less than an hour after a hospital discharged her is not entitled to discovery of the hospital’s written policies pertaining to her personal medical care or its policies for dealing with non-English speaking patients or treatment of patients by on-call physicians.
Fairfax Circuit Judge [...]
Domestic Relations – Equitable Distribution – Tax Payment Credits
By Deborah Elkins
Published: September 22, 2008
A divorce court did not err during equitable distribution in awarding wife half the fair market rental value of the marital home or finding the receivables from two loans to be marital assets, but the court did err in awarding wife credit for tax payments she made with marital funds, and the Court of Appeals [...]
Search & Seizure – Probation Revocation – Bad Faith
By Deborah Elkins
Published: September 22, 2008
In this appeal involving an officer’s discovery of a probationer’s cocaine possession when the officer entered a boarding house in pursuit of another man, the Court of Appeals erred in holding that the exclusionary rule never applies to evidence submitted in probation revocation proceedings, regardless of the searching officer’s conduct of bad faith, and the [...]
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