Virginia Lawyers Weekly VA Lawyers Weekly

Publisher & Editor-in-Chief A sharply divided Virginia Supreme Court has ruled, 4-3, that a trial judge erred in striking a punitive damages claim against a speeding motorist who had two prior DUI convictions, who drove with a .32 blood alcohol ...

Publisher & Editor-in-Chief As the Virginia Supreme Court was deciding Huffman v. Love, on the same day it came down the opposite way in a different punitives/drunk driving case. In Puent v. Dickens, (VLW 093-6-xxx), the high court upheld the ...

Publisher & Editor-in-Chief A New Yorker who dialed in and posted a message on a computer bulletin board in Herndon is subject to personal jurisdiction in Virginia, the Virginia Supreme Court has held. The message, posted during an airline strike ...

Legal Reporter Family court legislation is one step away from approval, after passage by the General Assembly before it adjourned this year’s short session. At press time, final versions of companion bills–House Bills 1678 and 1679–had not arrived on Gov. ...

Opinion Editor A subcontractor who failed to get the right witnesses on the stand has lost its half-million dollar damage award for work performed beyond the scope of its contract under a Virginia Supreme Court decision. The high court reversed ...

Legal Reporter Sixteen new judges will take their seats in coming weeks after being election by the General Assembly last month. Six seats remain to be filled when legislators return for the veto session next month. A vacancy in the ...

Lawyers who defend drunken drivers make a specialty of finding defects in the statutes, ordinances and procedures governing DUIs. As fast as the legislature closes one loophole, enterprising attorneys find another. Richmond attorney L. Neil Steverson and Prince George attorney ...

A conviction for heroin possession has been overturned by the Virginia Court of Appeals because the police did not disclose the identity of the confidential informant who tipped off police. The appellate court applied an exception to the general rule ...

Even though a defendant company had not received formal service of process, the 30-day time period for removing a case from state to federal court began to run when the company received a copy of the pleadings from the plaintiffs’ ...

When a driver’s blood sample was returned untested from the independent laboratory he selected, the commonwealth’s blood test results could not be admitted into evidence, a Greene County circuit judge has ruled. But the judge refused to dismiss DUI charges ...