2009 January 12 | Virginia Lawyers Weekly - Part 2

Med-mal damages cap fight held over until 2010 legislative session

By Peter Vieth
Published: January 12, 2009

Despite the introduction of a bill to boost the Virginia medical malpractice damages cap, it looks like the fight over a cap increase will be delayed until the 2010 legislative session.
Legislation introduced for the General Assembly session that starts this Wednesday would raise the cap on med-mal recoveries from $2 million to $2.75 million. The [...]

Criminal – Forging Public Record – Fixing DUI Conviction

By Deborah Elkins
Published: January 12, 2009

The Court of Appeals affirms the conviction of a former management analyst in the Fairfax County commonwealth’s attorney office for forging a public record in violation of Va. Code § 18.2-168, for her role in changing a record of a DUI conviction and forging another clerk’s name to the document, for which she received compensation.
At [...]

‘Largest Verdicts’ of 2008 presented

By Alan Cooper
Published: January 12, 2009

Virginia Lawyers Weekly’s survey of the “Largest Jury Verdicts of 2008” found 15 seven-figure judgments in 2008, barely half the number recorded two years ago and five fewer than reported last year.
Not that there weren’t a substantial number of big cases last year. VLW’s Verdicts and Settlements reports had 35 million-dollar settlements, perhaps a further [...]

Criminal – Felon In Possession – DNA Evidence

By Deborah Elkins
Published: January 12, 2009

There was significantly more evidence of defendant’s possession of a firearm discovered in the car, than just his occupancy of the vehicle and mere proximity to the firearm, and the Court of Appeals affirms his weapons conviction.
First, by glancing over his shoulder at the officer and making eye contact with him, defendant engaged in behavior [...]

Lawyer’s defamation suit in blown appeal case dismissed

By Alan Cooper
Published: January 12, 2009

A federal judge in Richmond has dismissed a lawsuit filed by an attorney who contended he was defamed by an allegation that he blew a deadline in the appeal of an $8.3 million judgment.
The federal case is one of four actions stemming from a dispute over who was responsible for filing the trial transcripts in [...]

Criminal – Embezzlement – Convenience Store – Money Orders

By Deborah Elkins
Published: January 12, 2009

Although defendant, who had worked as a 7-11 clerk for two weeks and was working unsupervised for the first time, claims the store videotape showed an unidentified person behind the cash register and then at the machine that dispensed money orders, defendant’s conviction of embezzlement of $1,000 in missing money orders is affirmed by the [...]

$750K verdict scored in Amherst County

By Peter Vieth
Published: January 12, 2009

An Amherst County jury returned a $750,000 verdict last week for a woman who suffered multiple injuries in a 2005 head-on collision that fatally injured the other driver. Plaintiff’s lawyer Peter A. Katt of Roanoke said the case is significant because the defendant mounted a vigorous defense based on the “dead man’s statute.”
Virginia’s dead [...]

Criminal – Cocaine Possession – Pipes In Car

By Deborah Elkins
Published: January 12, 2009

The testimony of a passenger in the vehicle stopped for an obscured license plate that she saw defendant, another passenger, with a cocaine pipe while defendant was sitting in the front passenger seat before they stopped at a friend’s apartment to smoke crack, was sufficient to convict defendant of possession of the drug, the Court [...]

Web 2.0 and the law firm Web site — Part II: Blogging

By Sarah Rodriguez
Published: January 12, 2009

As you know by now, Web 2.0 is changing the Internet, and it’s important for law firms to keep up with the trends.
The previous installment of this series offered some tips on enhancing your firm’s Web site presence with search engine optimization. While having a good Web site is the foundation to being successful on [...]

Criminal – Credit Card Theft & Forgery – Identity Fraud – Hearsay

By Deborah Elkins
Published: January 12, 2009

The Court of Appeals declines to consider whether the trial court erred in admitting a detective’s testimony that a witness told him defendant asked her to keep a lawn mower “until the cops cooled down,” for purposes of impeaching the witness’s testimony that she bought the lawn mower from defendant, when defendant framed his objection [...]

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