The VLW Blog

The U.S. Senate voted this evening to confirm President Obama’s nomination of U.S. District Judge Andre M. Davis to a seat on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Davis, a judge on the U.S. District Court of Baltimore, will take the seat that has been vacant since the 2000 death of Judge Francis D. Murnaghan [...]

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The story behind the abrupt and murky departure of former Norfolk Circuit Judge Alfred M. Tripp from the bench may now be public. And it apparently involves in part providing false information on judicial selection questionnaires sent to the General Assembly. Tripp departed from the Norfolk courthouse in October 2007 under circumstances that no one [...]

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If a divorce lawyer suspects he screwed up a settlement agreement, should he quick call his carrier? Or should he try to make amends and just hope he won’t be served? It depends. What did the lawyer know, when did he know it, and what did he do about it? Decisions about notice of claim [...]

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You really do have to sweat the small stuff when you’re a justice of the Supreme Court of Virginia. We give you three examples from today’s 20-opinion drop. Hutchins v. Talbert. Doctor loses a medical malpractice case, and the trial court enters final judgment on April 25 but suspends the order for 14 days, specifically [...]

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The Supreme Court of Virginia today exonerated two Hampton Roads lawyers held in contempt for presuming that Norfolk Circuit Judge Chuck Griffith would grant continuances in their clients’ criminal trials. Both lawyers – Ken Singleton and Gordon Zedd – arranged with the prosecutor’s office for the criminal trials to be postponed.  Both lawyers then told [...]

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A five-member majority of the Supreme Court of Virginia has attempted to clarify its holding in the controversial case involving the death of a teenage girl during a sleepover visit with a friend. In Kellermann v. McDonough, the court established a general duty for host parents to supervise and care for a child guest entrusted [...]

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Virginia Beach Juvenile & Domestic Relations Judge Ramona Taylor is censured by the Supreme Court of Virginia today for thwarting a juvenile defendant’s right to appeal the judge’s bond ruling. In 2007, Taylor denied bond for a 15-year-old repeat offender who admitted assaulting a younger boy.  Taylor then wrote in her bond order that the [...]

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The Supreme Court will review two cases VLW reported on at the trial level – a grant of summary judgment to an allegation that McGuireWoods LLP committed legal malpractice in a blown appeal of an $8.3 million personal injury verdict and a ruling on the authority of newspapers to publish legal notice advertising. An article about [...]

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The concept of “right result, wrong reason” is getting a thorough analysis from Virginia’s appellate courts these days. The latest airing comes today from the Court of Appeals, which assumed without deciding that the trial judge in Arlington erred in justifying the search of a defendant addled by marijuana and PCP on the ground that [...]

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We’re not sure what it takes to qualify as “obscene, vulgar, profane, lascivious, or indecent language” under Virginia Code Sec. 18.2-427, but we’re far too modest – our faces are still red – to repeat the words that the Virginia Court of Appeals says fall short of that standard in Lofgren v. Commonwealth. The words [...]

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