The VLW Blog

Jimmie V. Reyna, a partner in the Washington office of Williams Mullen, has been unanimously voted in by the United States Senate as Circuit Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
Reyna led the firm’s international trade & customs group and served on Williams Mullen’s board of directors. Reyna also has a [...]

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Another federal judge ruled today that the individual mandate in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional.
And U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson of the Northern District of Florida went a step further than his counterpart in Virginia, U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson in Richmond.
He ruled that the entire act is unconstitutional. [...]

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An effort to get legal commentary on the cheap has backfired on West Publishing Corp., The Philadelphia Inquirer reports.

Two law professors had split $10,000 for providing an annual update on Pennsylvania criminal procedure for the legal publisher.
But when the West suggested reducing that to $2,500 each, they decided to stop work on the addendum.
West [...]

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A federal jury in Norfolk convicted five men from Somalia today of piracy and several other related accounts stemming from an attack on a U.S. Navy warship that the defendants thought was a merchant vessel.
It is believed to be the first piracy conviction in the United States in 190 years, according to a press release [...]

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Breaking with other Virginia federal judges who have considered the issue, Roanoke U.S. District Judge Samuel Wilson has decided the stricter “plausibility” standard used to judge civil complaints does not apply to affirmative defenses.
The ruling may be cold comfort for a defendant in a contract dispute case where Wilson tossed the party’s counterclaims and most [...]

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The DEA is not waiting for the legislative process to take action against synthetic marijuana.
While legislators in Virginia and around the country have been drafting bills to ban the chemical pot, sold legally under names like “Spice” and “K-2,” the DEA announced Wednesday it’s using its emergency scheduling authority to “temporarily control” five chemical structures [...]

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A federal judge in Los Angeles has slashed McGuireWoods’ attorneys fees from $12 million to $500,000 in an antitrust case against West Publishing Corp., citing an “egregious breach of ethical duties.”
The class action suit, filed by consumers who were allegedly overcharged for the BAR/BRI exam review course, settled for $49 million in 2007.
According [...]

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A second panel of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit today upheld a special master’s finding that there is no connection between autism and a mercury-based preservative in the measles-mumps rubella vaccine.
The first panel issued its opinion in May. Judge Pauline Newman was the only judge on both panels, but she was [...]

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A Norfolk federal judge has dismissed piracy charges against a band of Somalis accused of trying to board and rob a U.S. Navy ship.
The defense attack on the piracy counts called for interpretation of a U.S. statute that had not been applied since the days of Blackbeard. As The Wall Street Journal reported, the lawyers [...]

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U.S. District Judge James R. Spencer affirmed yesterday a $19.3 million intellectual property verdict for the manufacturer of a computer keyboard support system.
The lawsuit pitted CompX International Inc. and its subsidiary, Waterloo Furniture Components Limited, and Humanscale Corp., the two largest companies in the field of ergonomic office products.
The case started as a patent infringement [...]

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