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High court hears record wrongful death appeal (access required)

By Deborah Elkins
Published: October 31, 2012
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A man should not keep a jury award for his wife’s death when he and his lawyer conspired to remove photos from his Facebook page and then lied about it to the court, a defense lawyer told the Supreme Court of Virginia on Oct. 30. Probing for prejudice the defendant might have suffered, several justices [...]

Payee notification passes VSB Council unanimously (access required)

By Peter Vieth
Published: October 23, 2012
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ROANOKE – A plan to require insurance companies to notify clients of insurance claim payments made to their lawyers won unanimous approval from the Virginia State Bar council Oct. 19. The proposal had a tangled and contentious history. Approval came only after the Virginia Trial Lawyers Association accepted the version of payee notification hammered out [...]

Supreme Court nixes changes in lawyer ad rules (access required)

By Peter Vieth
Published: September 20, 2012
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The Supreme Court of Virginia has rejected proposed reforms in lawyer advertising regulations, refusing to relax requirements for disclaimers on claims about case results and tightening limits on the use of words such as “expert” and “specialist.” With amended advertising rules adopted Sept. 18, the court spurned a plan by the Virginia State Bar and its [...]

Judge’s texts called an ethics violation (access required)

By Deborah Elkins
Published: September 7, 2012
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The justices of the Supreme Court are back in town Sept. 10, and their September docket includes a disciplinary case against a judge, based on text messages she sent to a court employee. The court also is set to hear a Chinese drywall case, a $25 million asbestos award and a potential Bowman claim. The [...]

Ethics advice may change on talks with adjusters (access required)

By Peter Vieth
Published: August 31, 2012
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The Virginia State Bar is signaling a change of position on an issue that regularly arises in litigation: May a plaintiff’s lawyer talk directly to an insurance adjuster without asking permission from the defense lawyer. The answer may soon be “Yes.” A draft legal ethics opinion published by the VSB acknowledges that a defense lawyer [...]

Appellate petitions ‘voided’ for vagueness (access required)

By Peter Vieth
Published: August 16, 2012
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“No more do-overs.” That’s what one appellate specialist said about last week’s published order from the Court of Appeals of Virginia announcing a dismissal penalty for failing to follow the rules for petitions for appeal. The court in March had asked lawyers to address whether a 2011 Supreme Court order mandated dismissal when assignments of [...]

Supreme Court clerkship program celebrates 50 years (access required)

By Virginia Lawyers Weekly
Published: July 9, 2012
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In the beginning there were three. Clerks, that is. Fifty years ago this month, the Supreme Court of Virginia hired its first class of judicial law clerks. And that first class had three members: John Pedigo, law clerk for Justice Harry Carrico; H. Thomas Fennell, who clerked for Justice Lawrence Warren I’Anson; and A. James [...]

The deal stays done: Fraud claim can’t undo settlement after $7M loss (access required)

By Deborah Elkins
Published: June 25, 2012
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When Jared Murayama signed off on a settlement in December 2009, he may have thought he had a pretty good deal. The deal gave him $2 million for transferring stock shares to NISC Holdings LLC, a company that bought out Murayama’s information technology company two years earlier. That was $2 million more than one proposal [...]

Email was ‘disgusting’ but was not ‘obscene’ (access required)

By Peter Vieth
Published: June 15, 2012
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An angry doctor’s “disgusting” emails to his ex-wife were not “obscene” under a Virginia criminal law and his conviction for harassment by computer has been overturned by the Supreme Court of Virginia. Where a Court of Appeals majority rejected a narrow interpretation of “obscenity” and embraced instead a broader dictionary definition, the Supreme Court insisted [...]

Van-fire plaintiff can cite other fires (access required)

By Deborah Elkins
Published: June 14, 2012
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A Waynesboro family can use evidence of other fires in Ford Windstar minivans to sue Ford Motor Company for the wrongful death of their three-year-old daughter after their minivan caught fire in their driveway. Earlier, an Albemarle County Circuit Court said the family could not use evidence of other van fires they alleged had put [...]

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