Church Property Subject to Constructive Trust 
By Deborah Elkins
Published: April 23, 2013
Tags: Justice Cleo E. Powell, Real Estate, Supreme Court of Virginia
In this protracted and complex dispute between plaintiffs, the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia and the Protestant Episcopal Church in the U.S., and seven local congregations that disaffiliated from the larger church, plaintiffs have demonstrated a proprietary interest in the church property at issue and the Supreme Court of Virginia says a constructive trust may be [...]
Disclaimer Needed, But Not Client Consent
By Deborah Elkins
Published: March 5, 2013
Tags: Attorneys, Justice Cleo E. Powell, Supreme Court of Virginia
A lawyer’s single disclaimer on his website was not enough to warn potential clients that they might not see the same successful results in their criminal cases as the lawyer touted in his blog posts, but the lawyer is not required to get permission of clients or former clients to discuss results in closed cases [...]
$6.2M Wrongful Death Award Reinstated
By Deborah Elkins
Published: January 24, 2013
Tags: Justice Cleo E. Powell, Negligence, Supreme Court of Virginia
The Supreme Court of Virginia reinstates the full jury verdict of $6,227,000 in a wrongful death case filed by a man whose wife died in a car accident when a concrete truck turned over on their car; the trial court erred in reducing plaintiff husband’s award because the court found it was disproportionate to the [...]
Failure-to-warn rule tightened in van case
By Peter Vieth
Published: January 17, 2013
Tags: Justice Cleo E. Powell, Justice Donald W. Lemons, Justice Elizabeth A. McClanahan, Justice LeRoy F. Millette Jr., Justice William C. Mims, Products Liability, Supreme Court of Virginia News, Virginia Association of Defense Attorneys, Wrongful Death
A change of heart by a single justice has brought an end to a short-lived “relaxed” standard for failure-to-warn claims under Virginia products liability law. After rehearing a products liability case, Virginia Supreme Court Justice LeRoy F. Millette Jr. switched his position on the standard for use of similar incidents in product failure cases, dashing [...]
Expert’s Use of Inadmissible Evidence Limited
By Deborah Elkins
Published: January 15, 2013
Tags: Justice Cleo E. Powell, Products Liability, Supreme Court of Virginia
In this products liability suit against Ford Motor Company filed by a family whose daughter died of severe burns from a key-off fire in the family’s Ford Windstar van, the Supreme Court of Virginia says on rehearing that the trial court did not err in excluding evidence of seven other Ford Windstar fires and in [...]
High court reinstates full verdict in ‘Lester’
By Peter Vieth
Published: January 10, 2013
Tags: Charlottesville Circuit Court, Judge Edward Hogshire, Justice Cleo E. Powell, Justice Elizabeth A. McClanahan, Million-Dollar Verdicts, Supreme Court of Virginia News, Wrongful Death
The Supreme Court of Virginia has reinstated the full jury verdict of $6,227,000 on Isaiah Lester’s wrongful death claim based on the loss of his wife in a car accident in 2007. The court’s ruling closes the book on a high-profile, high-dollar personal-injury case in Albemarle County. The trial judge had reduced the jury’s award [...]
Supreme Court hears lawyer-blogger’s appeal
By Deborah Elkins
Published: January 9, 2013
Tags: Constitutional, Justice Cleo E. Powell, Justice Cynthia D. Kinser, Justice William C. Mims, Lawyer Discipline, Rules of Professional Conduct, Supreme Court of Virginia News, Virginia State Bar
Lawyer-blogger Horace Hunter faced the Supreme Court of Virginia Jan. 8 in the appeal of his disciplinary case, and he said anything he wrote about his clients’ cases is absolutely protected by the First Amendment. First Amendment scholar Rodney Smolla made the case by arguing that Hunter’s blog is not commercial speech, but political speech [...]
Getting to the jury on ‘capacity’ for will
By Peter Vieth
Published: November 14, 2012
Tags: Alexandria Circuit Court, Justice Cleo E. Powell, Justice Cynthia D. Kinser, Justice Donald W. Lemons, Justice Elizabeth A. McClanahan, Justice LeRoy F. Millette Jr., Justice S. Bernard Goodwyn, Justice William C. Mims, Supreme Court of Virginia News, Wills & Trusts
Call it a finger on the scale of justice. The law sometimes gives an advantage to one side in a lawsuit, allowing a legal “presumption” about some key fact in the case. Presumptions can be overcome, but how much weight it takes, who gets to make the call, and what happens afterward have been open [...]
‘A new standard of liability’ in Virginia?
By Peter Vieth
Published: November 9, 2012
Tags: Employment, Federal Courts, Judge James C. Turk, Justice Cleo E. Powell, Justice Cynthia D. Kinser, Justice Donald W. Lemons, Justice Elizabeth A. McClanahan, Justice LeRoy F. Millette Jr., Justice S. Bernard Goodwyn, Justice William C. Mims, Supreme Court of Virginia News
The Supreme Court of Virginia has opened the door to claims against individual supervisors who take part in the unlawful firing of an employee. The Nov. 1 decision in VanBuren v. Grubb (VLW 012-6-143), decided 4-3, is a victory for a nurse who claimed she was groped, propositioned and then fired by an orthopedic surgeon [...]
City May Claim Ownership, Seek Condemnation
By Deborah Elkins
Published: November 7, 2012
Tags: Justice Cleo E. Powell, Real Estate, Supreme Court of Virginia
A city seeking to use a strip of property for a beach replenishment project may petition for condemnation in an eminent domain proceeding and alternatively, claim ownership rights in the condemned property, the Supreme Court of Virginia upholds judgment for the city. In early 2008, the city of Virginia Beach planned to replenish Cape Henry [...]
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