The VLW Blog

Here is today’s tip for a happy workplace: Don’t threaten to have police remove the company HR director, your superior, from a company-funded holiday lunch.
If you do deny admission to the festivities, don’t expect Sarbanes-Oxley to provide protective cover if you’re fired.
In Livingston v. Wyeth Inc., a 4th Circuit case reported March 24, plaintiff Mark [...]

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Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Really, really rich older guy marries a much younger woman. His relatives don’t like the situation so they take legal action. Acrimony ensues.
Okay, the late Anna Nicole Smith isn’t starring in this particular movie. It’s a just-completed case in South Florida. A lawyer friend of mine [...]

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The Associated Press reports that Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling will announce this afternoon that he will seek reelection as lieutenant governor in 2009.
Bolling’s announcement will leave Attorney General Bob McDonnell an open field for the Republican nomination for governor. Former Gov. and Sen. George Allen announced earlier that he would take a pass on [...]

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How does a lawyer know when a judge is annoyed at him? Maybe it’s when the judge lays out his beef in a first-page footnote in a published opinion. In this decision, Chief U.S. District Judge James Jones pointedly criticizes the policy of the Western District prosecutor of opposing every single crack sentence [...]

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Noncompete cases always seem to generate a great deal of interest when we feature them in the paper.
This week, we got a case that has a new twist. It was decided by Virginia Beach Circuit Judge Joe Canada.
The case involves three guys who partnered to start a martial arts studio.
Their cooperative agreement featured [...]

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Two sisters from Chesapeake found a gem in a box of Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes. It was a corn flake that was shaped like the state of Illinois.
So as any entrepreneur might, they put it up for sale on eBay, the grand online swap meet. The Daily Press has an account this morning.
The flake [...]

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The Virginia Judicial Council sent to the Supreme Court of Virginia today a formal set of Rules of Evidence and a proposed Part Nine to the Supreme Court’s rules that would regulate access to private information in court records.
The proposed Rules of Evidence are the result of more than 20 years of off and on [...]

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It’s tough to prove adultery as a ground for divorce in Virginia.
It helps to catch the wayward spouse emerging from his girlfriend’s home in his underwear.
In Toth v. Toth (VLW 008-8-071), a Fairfax Circuit Court said a wife proved adultery with evidence from a private investigator who observed the husband grocery shopping with his alleged [...]

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Ray Harron is back. Dr. Harron is well-known to lawyers who handle asbestos cases. He’s the West Virginia radiologist who made a fortune and a reputation as a reader of mass quantities of lung x-rays for asbestos and silicosis claimants. (This is Ray Anthony Harron of Bridgeport, WV — not to be [...]

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The Supreme Court of Virginia has granted an appeal to litigants in Spotsylvania County who want to keep the terms of their wrongful death settlements a secret. The cases involve allegedly tainted heart medicine blamed for six deaths and four injuries. The Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star is pressing to have the dollar amounts of [...]

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