Judges stay fit, fight stress with sports training

Circuit Court Can’t Hear Disability Appeal

By Deborah Elkins
Published: January 19, 2012
Tags: Justice William C. Mims, Municipal, Supreme Court of Virginia

In a county that has the urban executive form of government, Va. Code § 51.1-823 does not confer jurisdiction on a circuit court to hear a school board employee’s appeal of a denial of a request for service-connected disability benefits by the board of trustees of a retirement system that is not a police retirement [...]

Detective Comment Not ‘Interrogation’

By Deborah Elkins
Published: January 19, 2012
Tags: Justice William C. Mims, Search & Seizure, Supreme Court of Virginia

Although a detective may have directly addressed defendant, who had asked for a lawyer, when he repeated that a co-defendant had made a statement about deciding to rob a “white lady” and hit her in the head with a brick, the detective’s comments were not the functional equivalent of interrogation, and the Supreme Court of [...]

Plan Commission Can’t Waive Slope Work

By Deborah Elkins
Published: January 18, 2012
Tags: Justice William C. Mims, Supreme Court of Virginia, Zoning

An Albemarle County ordinance that allows for a waiver of certain restrictions on construction on steep slopes is struck down by the Supreme Court of Virginia as an improper delegation of legislative authority, and a circuit court’s denial of a property owner’s challenge to installation of a cell phone tower on an adjacent parcel under [...]

Pest Control’s Noncompete Struck

By Deborah Elkins
Published: November 10, 2011
Tags: Employment, Justice William C. Mims, Supreme Court of Virginia

A divided Supreme Court of Virginia strikes a pest control company’s noncompete that said for two years, a former employee could not engage “directly or indirectly” in “any manner whatsoever” in conducting broadly identified activities of a pest control business; the high court says it has “incrementally clarified” the law since it upheld the same [...]

No Will Transfer of LLC Interest

By Deborah Elkins
Published: November 10, 2011
Tags: Justice William C. Mims, Supreme Court of Virginia, Wills & Trusts

Membership in a Virginia limited liability corporation may not be transferred by will, the Supreme Court of Virginia holds, and the daughter of a two-member LLC inherited only her father’s financial interest in the company to share in profits and losses, and not the right to remove its managing member and successor managing member. Admiral [...]

Med-mal case dismissed, out-of-state lawyer at fault

By Peter Vieth
Published: November 10, 2011
Tags: Justice Cynthia D. Kinser, Justice Donald W. Lemons, Justice LeRoy F. Millette Jr., Justice S. Bernard Goodwyn, Justice William C. Mims, Medical Malpractice, Supreme Court of Virginia News

Missteps by a Missouri lawyer cost a Virginia medical malpractice plaintiff the chance to prove her claim against a Richmond hospital in a case decided this month by the Supreme Court of Virginia. The court offered no remedy for the patient whose lawsuit was dismissed because her out-of-state lawyer was derelict in disclosures about experts [...]

Adult Adoption Cuts Off Inheritance

By Deborah Elkins
Published: September 20, 2011
Tags: Justice William C. Mims, Supreme Court of Virginia, Wills & Trusts

The Supreme Court of Virginia says the adoption of an adult has the same effect as the adoption of a minor, for purposes of intestate succession, and the three children of a woman who was adopted at age 53 by her aunt by marriage may not inherit from the estate of their mother’s biological sister, [...]

For Law Firm Dissolution, Accounting Comes First

By Deborah Elkins
Published: September 20, 2011
Tags: Justice William C. Mims, Partnerships, Supreme Court of Virginia

In sorting out the interests of three former associates who bought into a law partnership in 1999 with defendant partner, after all four lawyers moved on to another firm, a circuit court erred in failing to perform the accounting that is “necessarily inherent in a winding up” of the firm’s business before ordering judicial dissolution [...]

Pest company’s noncompete case heard

By Deborah Elkins
Published: September 14, 2011
Tags: Contract, Judge Bruce D. White, Justice Cleo E. Powell, Justice William C. Mims, Supreme Court of Virginia News

The Supreme Court of Virginia has a chance to clarify the law on noncompetes as it takes a fresh look at an agreement it upheld over 20 years ago. Then and now, a pest control company with an extensive customer list asks employees to sign a contract intended to keep a defecting employee from filching [...]