Roanoke’s no cell-phone policy defended by judges

New Venue Motion Needed for Amended Complaint

By Deborah Elkins
Published: September 23, 2011
Tags: Civil Procedure, Judge Clifford R. Weckstein, Roanoke Circuit Court, Virginia Circuit Courts

Defendants who moved for a change of venue in response to an original complaint, but who failed to object to venue when they filed responsive pleadings to plaintiff’s amended complaint that added more plaintiffs, have waived their right to seek a change of venue, says a Roanoke City Circuit Court. Plaintiff Argos Utilities, a Delaware [...]

No Inverse Condemnation for Leasehold

By Deborah Elkins
Published: September 12, 2011
Tags: Judge Charles N. Dorsey, Real Estate, Roanoke Circuit Court, Virginia Circuit Courts

Although a billboard advertising company says its leasehold on land that has been purchased after condemnation by the Roanoke Redevelopment & Housing Authority has been damaged because the Authority is more likely to terminate its leasehold than would a private owner, the Roanoke City Circuit Court rejects the company’s suit for inverse condemnation. On Nov. [...]

No Absolute Immunity for Water Authority

By Deborah Elkins
Published: August 2, 2011
Tags: Judge Clifford R. Weckstein, Municipal, Roanoke Circuit Court, Virginia Circuit Courts

Defendant Western Virginia Water Authority is a municipal corporation with no absolute sovereign immunity, and a landowner may sue the Authority for damages allegedly caused by the Authority’s negligent maintenance and operation of a sanitary sewer line; although the Roanoke City Circuit previously held that a water authority created by the county and city has [...]

Appeal of JDR Show Cause Order Dismissed

By Deborah Elkins
Published: July 6, 2011
Tags: Criminal, Judge Clifford R. Weckstein, Roanoke Circuit Court, Virginia Circuit Courts

A Roanoke City Circuit Court dismisses an appeal from a juvenile and domestic relations court order finding defendant “not guilty” on a Show Cause Summons (Criminal) , as the appeal is barred by the double jeopardy provisions of the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and Article I, Section 8 of the Virginia Constitution. On [...]

Business Valuation Report Has ‘Palpable Error’

By Deborah Elkins
Published: May 9, 2011
Tags: Corporate, Judge Charles N. Dorsey, Roanoke Circuit Court, Virginia Circuit Courts

In construing an S corporation’s Redemption Agreement to allow an ailing principal to cash out his shares, a Roanoke City Circuit Court says there is “palpable error” on the face of the independent appraiser’s report, which may let the remaining principals out of that appraiser’s $3.5 million valuation of the money management business. Plaintiff Peter [...]

Liability Admitted, But no Additur for $0 Verdict

By Deborah Elkins
Published: May 9, 2011
Tags: Civil Procedure, Judge Charles N. Dorsey, Roanoke Circuit Court, Virginia Circuit Courts

A Roanoke City Circuit Court denies plaintiff’s motion for additur in this case in which liability was admitted but plaintiff pleaded no special damages and the jury awarded $0.00. In Bowers v. Sprouse, 254 Va. 428 (1997), the Supreme Court of Virginia said a jury award that compensates a plaintiff for the exact amount of [...]

Court Orders Constructive Trust for Stepsons

By Deborah Elkins
Published: April 25, 2011
Tags: Judge Robert P. Doherty Jr., Roanoke Circuit Court, Virginia Circuit Courts, Wills & Trusts

In two adult sons’ suit against their stepmother as third-party beneficiaries of their parents’ post-nuptial agreement, a Roanoke County Circuit Court says the sons are entitled to only 50 percent of their father’s life insurance proceeds, and the court imposes a constructive trust on $63,424 as the sons’ share of their father’s estate. Husband and [...]

Court Does ED of Farmette & House in Town

By Deborah Elkins
Published: March 16, 2011
Tags: Domestic Relations, Judge Clifford R. Weckstein, Roanoke Circuit Court, Virginia Circuit Courts

In the divorce of an emergency-room physician and his wife, who during the last five years of their 19-year marital partnership, sank hundreds of thousands of dollars into their Craig County farmette, building an equestrian center and raising horses and sheep, a Roanoke City Circuit Court divides the parties’ real and personal property and orders [...]

MS, job stress not ‘good cause’ to quit

By Deborah Elkins
Published: March 14, 2011
Tags: Judge Clifford R. Weckstein, Roanoke Circuit Court, Unemployment Comp, Virginia Circuit Courts

Although claimant made the “perfectly understandable decision,” as a single mother with no family in Virginia, suffering from MS, to return to Michigan where she had family and a support network, the Virginia Employment Commission committed no error of law in deciding claimant did not show good cause for her voluntary resignation, and a Roanoke [...]