The Supreme Court of Virginia has upheld an award of attorneys’ fees and costs that was larger than the amount the property owner recovered in her inverse condemnation case. The court entered an order last week that there was no reversible error in City of Newport News v. Yoder, Record No. 110036. The contentiousness of [...]
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Posted in Unpublished Orders on Apr 12th, 2011
An upstart union that won the right to represent workers at the giant MeadWestvaco paper mill in Covington also wins the local union hall. A circuit court judge in January had ruled the new union – Covington Paperworkers Union Local 675 – should have exclusive possession of the disputed union hall. A panel of the [...]
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Posted in Unpublished Orders on Apr 8th, 2011
The concept of a scrivener’s error couldn’t be used to reform a deed of trust just because the document didn’t reflect the intent of the parties, the Supreme Court of Virginia ruled today in an unpublished order. To obtain relief, the party asserting a scrivener’s error has the burden to proving “that the document contained [...]
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Posted in Unpublished Orders on Apr 1st, 2011
The Supreme Court of Virginia upheld today a defense verdict in a medical malpractice case from Rockingham County in which the testimony of the plaintiff’s expert on the standard of care was a key issue. Plaintiff suffered partial paralysis of his right arm and leg after the defendant orthopedic surgeon operated on him in June [...]
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Posted in Unpublished Orders on Mar 25th, 2011
The Supreme Court of Virginia reinstated today the case of two passengers in a truck that was hit by a train in Chesapeake. The trial judge in Norfolk had entered summary judgment for Norfolk Southern Railway Co. after concluding that the passengers were contributorily negligent in the crash, which occurred at a crossing with no [...]
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Posted in Unpublished Orders on Mar 4th, 2011
The doctrine of laches, and not a statute of limitations, controls whether a suit for rescission has been filed in a timely manner, the Supreme Court of Virginia held today in an unpublished order in Nunnenkamp v. Copenhaver. The issue arose from a claim that an accountant had used undue influence to have a woman [...]
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Posted in Unpublished Orders on Feb 25th, 2011
A Chesterfield County circuit judge properly dismissed actions filed by a disbarred attorney with a history of filing frivolous suits because he had not sought leave of court before filing them, the Supreme Court of Virginia ruled today in an unpublished order. In addition to ordering Michael J. Morrissey to pay $15,000 for filing an [...]
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Posted in Unpublished Orders on Feb 11th, 2011
The Supreme Court of Virginia ruled today in an unpublished order that a trial judge erred in dismissing the effort of an Arlington attorney to collect his fees in one of two cases in which he represented a woman. In the first case, Ernest P. Francis defended the woman in an action against her by [...]
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Posted in Unpublished Orders on Jan 8th, 2011
The Supreme Court of Virginia affirmed yesterday the two-year suspension of the license of Alexandria lawyer Dale E. Duncan despite an embarrassing oversight by the Virginia State Bar. A three-judge panel concluded that Duncan had violated Rules of Professional Conduct 8.4(a), (b) and (c) by knowingly making misrepresentations in drafting loan documents for First Mount [...]
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Posted in Unpublished Orders on Dec 29th, 2010
The Supreme Court of Virginia issued unpublished orders today in two areas of the law that it has had frequent occasion to visit – statutory employees and inadequate damages. Both orders reversed judgments that had been entered for defendants in personal injury actions. The statutory employee case involved a fall from a catwalk by Gary [...]
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