Where a school board disciplined a student for nonconsensual sexual touching of three other students, the circuit court erred by vacating the board’s decision. The circuit court misapplied governing legal standards and misinterpreted the record of the disciplinary proceedings, rules ...

Tagged with: Constitutional Justice D. Arthur Kelsey Supreme Court of Virginia

In a case of a two-pronged payback, a man who shot a pair of road-rage assailants and then sued the one who survived may have to try his damages case again in Richmond Circuit Court. Four justices of the Supreme ...

Tagged with: Justice D. Arthur Kelsey Justice Elizabeth A. McClanahan Supreme Court of Virginia News

The Supreme Court of Virginia, by a 4-3 vote, has deferred to a trial judge who allowed a juror to remain trial-eligible, despite the man’s expressed doubts about the fairness of medical malpractice litigation. The decision leaves in place a ...

Tagged with: Chief Justice Donald W. Lemons Judge Joi Jeter-Taylor Justice Cleo E. Powell Justice D. Arthur Kelsey Justice William C. Mims Supreme Court of Virginia News

Although the U.S. Supreme Court has held that the Fourth Amendment’s automobile exception does not permit a police officer who lacks a warrant or an invitation to enter a home’s curtilage to search a parked vehicle, evidence seized under those ...

Tagged with: Justice D. Arthur Kelsey Search & Seizure Supreme Court of Virginia

Where a hearing officer determined an inmate violated prison regulations after he tested positive for opiates, his request for a chain-of-custody report, an access log for the drug test results and a list of his current medications was properly denied. ...

Tagged with: Civil Rights Justice D. Arthur Kelsey Supreme Court of Virginia

Although at least two Virginia circuit judges have ruled that the one-time use of a vehicle in a single drug transaction is not sufficient to justify forfeiture of the vehicle, the Supreme Court of Virginia now says a single drug ...

Tagged with: Judge Robert M.D. Turk Justice D. Arthur Kelsey Supreme Court of Virginia News

Even though the appellee used his truck only once to sell drugs to an undercover informant, the truck had a “substantial connection” to the illegal distribution of a controlled substance and was subject to forfeiture under the applicable civil forfeiture ...

Tagged with: Civil Practice Justice D. Arthur Kelsey Supreme Court of Virginia

Where a historical society that was affiliated with a church hired a contractor to move and reconstruct a school, neither is liable for a workers’ compensation claim filed by a man the contractor hired to help with the job. The ...

Tagged with: Justice D. Arthur Kelsey Supreme Court of Virginia Workers' Compensation

A coverage-extension provision in a commercial property insurance policy does not entitle the named insured to fire damage coverage for a building owned by the insured’s recently acquired subsidiary. The extension, which applies to newly acquired buildings, cannot be applied ...

Tagged with: Insurance Justice D. Arthur Kelsey Supreme Court of Virginia

A holding company for a Madison County winery that defaulted on a commercial loan, and whose collateral was seized by the bank, could not assert the bank breached a contract because the company’s interpretation was contrary to the reasonable meaning ...

Tagged with: Contract Justice D. Arthur Kelsey Supreme Court of Virginia