The VLW Blog

One defamation trial could lead to another as a Richmond circuit judge is seeking $1.35 million against a newspaper that allegedly accused the judge of playing politics with lawyers. Judge Melvin Hughes filed suit last week against the publisher of “The Richmond Voice” in Chesterfield County Circuit Court. At issue was an article in the [...]

[Read more →]

A Newport News jury returned a $25 million verdict this morning against Exxon Corp. for a ship repair supervisor who contracted mesothelioma after working on the company’s ships from 1966-77. Rubert Minton, 72, of Isle of Wight County, was working for Newport News Shipbuilding at the time. Minton’s attorney, Bobby Hatten, said Minton worked in [...]

[Read more →]

Court personnel are on the front lines of customer service every day. So it’s nice when someone notices these public servants can’t always respond to the guff they can get when dealing with the public. When he got a summons to appear for jury duty in Norfolk Circuit Court, James C. Henderson went to the [...]

[Read more →]

Charlottesville lawyer Frank Buck will appear in court today, defending a misdemeanor charge that he assaulted a client. According to an account in The Hook, Charlottesville’s alternative weekly, Buck and a client argued in a J&DR courtroom during a court recess. Buck allegedly put his hands on or around Milton L. John’s neck, then dropped [...]

[Read more →]

A Norfolk man whose loud protest about a jury summons earned him a contempt conviction has been exonerated by the Court of Appeals of Virginia. James C. Henderson definitely did NOT want to serve on a jury. Summoned in 2009, he showed up at the Norfolk courthouse, making it clear to all in a loud [...]

[Read more →]

Is Texas Hold ‘em a game of skill or a game of chance? A Portsmouth circuit judge will get to answer that conundrum. The former owner of a poker hall in Portsmouth has challenged a decision by the commonwealth’s attorney, who said poker is a game of chance and therefore outlawed by the state’s gambling [...]

[Read more →]

A group of tenants attacked in a letter from Roanoke white supremacist Bill White has won a jury verdict against White and his American National Socialist Workers Party in a federal civil trial. The jury awarded compensatory damages of $265,000 against White and $280,000 against the party on Aug. 27. Based on a jury finding, [...]

[Read more →]

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli this week gave the green light for clerks to make recordings of court proceedings and provide copies for a fee, a practice that might help litigants who can’t afford to hire court reporters. Cuccinelli’s position on the issue is described in an attorney general opinion in response to a request [...]

[Read more →]

Former clients of disbarred Roanoke bankruptcy attorney Ann Marie Miller will receive an average of 20 cents on the dollar for their claims under a plan generally approved by Roanoke Circuit Judge Clifford Weckstein. Roanoke lawyer Chip Magee, the receiver for Miller’s law practice, reported holding a total of $43,516.16 available for distribution to former [...]

[Read more →]

Divorce courts deciding custody often look at travel time when they juggle visitation schedules. One Fairfax court got right down to the daily commute, deciding a child should change from a Virginia school to one in Annapolis in order to cut his windshield time. When William Atkins and Debra Piccirillo divorced in 2005, the parties [...]

[Read more →]