Where a restaurant and its corporate officer have challenged Executive Order 72, which placed COVID-19-related limitations on alcohol sales and patron capacity at food and beverage establishments, the portions  of Virginia law under which the order was issued are constitutional. ...

Tagged with: Civil Practice Judge David W. Lannetti Virginia Circuit Courts

An internet service provider must pay a city’s business tax assessments because the city began collecting the tax before the effective date of a federal law that bars taxation of internet service access revenues. Background This case involves the interplay ...

Tagged with: Judge David W. Lannetti Norfolk City Circuit Court Taxation Virginia Circuit Courts

Where defendant railroad company has moved to dismiss plaintiff’s injury claim brought under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act based on an inconvenient forum, the motion is denied. Defendant has not established “substantial inconvenience” to the likely witnesses at trial. Background ...

Tagged with: Civil Practice Judge David W. Lannetti Norfolk Circuit Court Virginia Circuit Courts

Where wife has counterclaimed for a divorce on grounds of cruelty, her allegations that husband sexually abused the parties’ daughters when they were minors, and the effect this had on wife, “do not constitute cruelty for purposes of divorce under ...

Tagged with: Domestic Relations Fairfax County Circuit Court Judge David W. Lannetti Virginia Circuit Courts

Where plaintiff alleges that a city created a public nuisance by not replacing a missing stop sign at the intersection where another driver collided with her car, the city’s demurrer is overruled. However, the city’s special plea of sovereign immunity ...

Tagged with: Judge David W. Lannetti Norfolk City Circuit Court Personal Injury Virginia Circuit Courts

Where an internet provider challenges the Virginia Tax Commissioner’s ruling that the city of Norfolk’s business tax can be levied on gross receipts from internet access services under the grandfather clause in a federal law that bans such taxation, the ...

Tagged with: Civil Practice Judge David W. Lannetti Norfolk City Circuit Court Virginia Circuit Courts

The estate of a man who died in a nursing home in Sussex County can keep its wrongful death suit in Norfolk Circuit Court, a judge there has ruled. The defendant company that owns the nursing home also operates a ...

Tagged with: Judge David W. Lannetti Norfolk Circuit Court Nursing Home Pandemic Wrongful Death

Even though plaintiff executor sued defendant care provider in Norfolk County despite the fact that plaintiff’s decedent was treated in defendant’s Sussex County facility, defendants’ motion to transfer venue is denied. Overview Medical Facilities of America, the lead defendant in ...

Tagged with: Civil Practice Judge David W. Lannetti Norfolk Circuit Court Virginia Circuit Courts

Plaintiffs’ post-arbitration communications with defendant’s agent extended the statute of limitations on their Lemon Law claim. Overview After plaintiffs claimed their new Jeep manufactured by FCA had many problems, plaintiff Randel submitted a Customer Arbitration Process Application as part of an ...

Tagged with: Civil Practice Judge David W. Lannetti Norfolk City Circuit Court Virginia Circuit Courts

In this interpleader action, even though there was a mutual mistake of fact regarding a settlement to distribute the proceeds of a property sale, respondents, who seek to reform the distribution agreement, are equitably estopped from doing so. Overview Gerald ...

Tagged with: Civil Practice Judge David W. Lannetti Norfolk City Circuit Court Virginia Circuit Courts