The VLW Blog

An injured longshoreman who managed to keep his case out of federal court has won a $5 million verdict from a Portsmouth jury.
The Virginian-Pilot reports Sherman Whitaker was hurt when he fell through a shipyard catwalk in 2002.  His lawyer, William Breit, filed suit against his German-owned employer in Portsmouth Circuit Court asking for $74,000, [...]

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The Supreme Court of Virginia will not decide the validity of an “illegal act” exclusion in a medical insurance policy.
The case of Bailey v. Anthem Health Plans of Virginia Inc., Record No. 082014, had been scheduled for argument before the court on Monday, but the parties settled.
“It was resolved to both parties’ satisfaction,” said Daniel R. Bieger, [...]

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The Virginia State Bar has imposed a one-year suspension on the law license of Anne Marston Lynch, the Suffolk lawyer who was publicly castigated by the Virginia Court of Appeals for repeated lapses in the handling of a criminal appeal.
The Court of Appeals, in a Feb. 3 published order, disbarred Lynch indefinitely from practice before [...]

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Federal authorities say a Mechanicsville doctor wrote thousands of prescriptions for people he never examined.
Torino Jennings, a staff physician at Retreat Doctors’ Hospital in Richmond, is accused of issuing 50,000 to 100,000 prescriptions for the relaxant Soma and other drugs between 2004 and 2007, reports the Boston Globe. Authorities say he was compensated between $5 [...]

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Supervisors who were acquitted of criminal charges plan to ask for an attorney general’s opinion on whether they can vote to have the county pay their lawyer.
The Northumberland County commonwealth’s attorney (who has since left the position for a J&DR judgeship) concluded that the supervisors shouldn’t participate in such a vote because of a conflict [...]

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Former Christiansburg lawyer Gerard Marks has agreed to serve 11 months in jail for forging official documents to make clients think he had done legal work for them.
The agreement was worked out just before a scheduled sentencing hearing, according to The Roanoke Times.  An investigation showed Marks had forged the signatures of Circuit Judges Bobby [...]

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In 2007, conservationists asked the federal government to declare the loggerhead sea turtle, a species that spends its summers in Virginia coastal waters, an endangered species.
The government never responed, reports The Virginian-Pilot, so lawyers from three national advocacy groups are expected to sue the National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service [...]

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Norfolk lawyer Pete Decker and Judge Tom Shadrick of Virginia Beach are rewarding students for good grades.
For the past 10 years, “Uncle Pete” has treated elementary school students who have improved their grades to a day off and lunch, reports WVEC.
This year, the students also toured Nauticus the National Maritime Center and the Battleship Wisconsin [...]

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A Suffolk club owner’s luck ran out in Norfolk federal court last Friday.  
The club owner had told music-licensing giant ASCAP that he would take his chances on operating without an ASCAP license, according to a lawsuit filed by the publishers. The plaintiffs included “Gone Gator Music,” “Floated Music,” “Milksongs” and “Hideout Records.”   
The suit [...]

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The U.S. Supreme Court holds a cocaine user did not commit felony facilitation of a Virginia drug dealer’s business merely by using his cellphone to arrange small purchases for personal use.
The case, decided yesterday, arises out of an investigation of a drug dealer in the Northern Virginia suburbs.  The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals [...]

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