The VLW Blog

The Supreme Court of Virginia has refused to halt Randolph-Macon’s sex-change operation. Trustees of the Lynchburg college that is switching from all-female to coed did not breach their contract with entering female students, the Supreme Court of Virginia said today. In Dodge v. Trustees of Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, nine female students filed suit after the [...]

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Bummer if you were looking for the Supreme Court of Virginia to really decide three closely watched cases: Miller-Jenkins v. Miller-Jenkins, which appeared to raise the issue of whether Virginia courts will defer to courts of another state on issues involving same sex couples, and Moreau v. Fuller and Gibson v. Commonwealth, which presented the [...]

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We are scratching our heads trying to understand the theory of liability in this bribery case arising from Buchanan County flood damage. It’s well-established that county officials solicited and accepted bribes, including a coon dog, from contractors in exchange for flood clean-up contracts. As reported by the Bristol Herald-Courier, it is undisputed that the contractors [...]

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The Virginia State Bar, the Virginia Bar Association and the Virginia Trial Lawyers Association have endorsed candidates for the State Corporation Commission vacancy created by the retirement of Commissioner Theodore V. Morrison Jr. The VSB’s judicial nominations committee told Gov. Timothy M. Kaine that it found four candidates to be highly qualified: – Philip R. [...]

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If you believe that the US Constitution gives you the right to send anonymous non-commercial e-mails, your champion at the Supreme Court of Virginia is spammer Jeremy Jaynes. As the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports, Richmond attorney Tom Wolf made the case for Jaynes before the court on Wednesday as he seeks relief from his 9-year prison sentence.

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When Dr Karen Alldredge of Salem was bounced from her practice group of ER physicians, she did not sue her colleagues who voted her off their island; instead, she sued the hospital that, she claims, wrongly forced her colleagues to fire her. The Roanoke Times reports on the lawsuit against the Lewis-Gale Medical Center. The [...]

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Virginia Beach circuit Judge Joseph Canada has set aside a jury’s guilty verdict in a case against a police officer accused of extorting money. According to WAVY, the judge did not think that the evidence was sufficient for conviction. Update: more details today from the Virginian-Pilot, including comments from the attorneys and a law professor.

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This just in: Breaking up is still hard to do. In fact, it may be getting more difficult for same-sex couples, as Virginia courts continue to face the fallout when same-sex relationships fall apart. Last Friday the VLW Blog reported a new Roanoke County case in which Judge Cliff Weckstein told a female couple who [...]

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A Clifton Forge woman who claimed that her bunionectomy led to permanent, disabling pain and the amputation of her toes won a $3.5 million verdict from a Roanoke jury on Friday. With the cap on medical malpractice damages, the award would be reduced to $1.65 million. Attorney Patrick T. Fennell represented the plaintiff in the [...]

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Roanoke Bar Association president George “Al” McLean gives a measured response to the recent comment by Roanoke state Senator Ralph Smith that lawyers have too much influence in the judicial selection process. McLean’s comments appear in a Sunday op-ed piece in the Roanoke Times. UPDATE: We are advised that the McLean essay was approved by [...]

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