The VLW Blog

If you are an employer who provides pet privileges at your workplace, be careful how you involve your employees with your animals. Creating some distance between a pet and an employee can help protect an employer from a workers’ comp claim for a workplace injury linked to any animals in residence. There was conflicting testimony [...]

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As we noted in our Dog Law feature last year, finding insurance to cover damage from unruly canines can be a tough assignment. In the twisting tale of Pauline Dabney’s dog bite claim, the Supreme Court of Virginia opened a door Tuesday. Dabney was attacked and injured by two dogs in 2002. With help from [...]

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A Court of Appeals panel has overturned Warren County’s barking dog law as unconstitutional, but one judge argues for a more lenient approach to local noise ordinances. The Warren County noise ordinance was overly vague under the standard established in a 2009 Supreme Court of Virginia opinion overturning a Virginia Beach noise law, the three-judge [...]

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Recent VLW coverage has ranged from “dog law” to the wreck of the Titanic. Now, these seemingly disparate tracks converge, as we note the “World’s First Tribute to the Dogs Onboard the Titanic.” Promoted on a highway billboard outside Branson, Missouri, this special exhibit is part of “Titanic: World’s Largest Museum Attraction,” which opened in [...]

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A Spotsylvania County family left the courthouse empty handed yesterday after a jury refused to blame animal control officers for the brutal dog mauling death of an 82-year-old woman. Represented by Charlottesville’s Tom Albro, the family contended that the county officers knew about repeated problems with a woman’s pit bull terriers running at large but [...]

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Challenges to drug dog searches are as common as the canines themselves. In a case of first impression, the Supreme Court of Virginia today lays down the law for admissibility of evidence obtained as a result of an alert by a narcotics detection dog. A dog’s positive alert establishes probable cause for a vehicle search [...]

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The pit bull that belonged to the son of Elsie Campbell was a bad dog all right. So bad, in fact, that Campbell wouldn’t get out of her car when she went to the house that she owned and allowed her son to live in rent-free. When Campbell stayed in the car, the dog would [...]

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