The VLW Blog

A dad in Fairfax asked a judge to give him more visitation time with his sons. The reason? He wanted to maximize his participation in the social, recreational and sports groups of his sons, ages 9 and 11. The boys play football, baseball, basketball and soccer. Mom expressed concern, testifying that the dad put an “emphasis on sports above all else.” Plus, when he coaches the boys, he yells a lot, she testified. The trial judge, applying the standard, found a change in visitation wasn’t “in the best interests of the children.” The appeals court backed him up in a new decision, Duda v. Hunt.

The law firm of Willcox & Savage was one of the first tenants to move into the Bank of America Building when it opened in downtown Norfolk in 1967. But The Virginian-Pilot reports that that the firm’s Norfolk office will be changing addresses in 2010. The firm will move to the Wachovia Center, a $150 million project currently under development next to the MacArthur Center.

Judge Robert K. Woltz served on the circuit bench in Winchester for 21 years until his retirement in 1989. He died March 22 at the age of 88. Colleagues and friends told the Winchester Star (registration required) that the judge was a man who was fair and courteous and a man who loved the celebrate the annual Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival. While some judges liked to move quickly through a trial, Judge Woltz loved the courtroom so much that he didn’t mind long case, one friend said.

March Madness is in full swing, and once again many an office worker with a basketball jones will be trying to sneak a peek at his team’s game over the Internet. Unless he works for the federal court system.

Once again our friend and source in the Eastern District (identified here only as “Shallow Throat”) has sent along a warning memo from the court IT guys. Last year, the bandwidth was nearly maxed out, and the no b-ball forces would block any streaming sports site they discovered, a tactic they’re using again this March.

But the IT guys have a graver warning this time around: Watching sports could sacrifice security. During the Super Bowl, hackers managed to get into the live feed from Dolphin Stadium, where the game was played. Anyone who watched the game on the computer got a surprise present: A keylogging program embedded in the feed.

The courts memo concludes with a sniff: “Judiciary personnel are reminded that it is inappropriate to use judiciary resources to the detriment of business processes.” No doubt the IT guys will be pleased when March Madness is over.

Employees at a Harrisonburg medical supplies office say they tried to warn their boss about a coworker’s strange and threatening behavior. But because the company, American HomePatient Inc., allegedly turned a deaf ear, it now faces the possibility of punitive damages on a claim for negligent retention.

Last spring, a man named Brewer Hoover Jr. developed a romantic obsession for a woman at the office, Bonnie Sue Crump. Hoover threatened Crump because he believed she was having an extramarital affair with Gary Gibson, another guy in the office. Crump was scared: she kept a cane at her desk for protection, and she wouldn’t visit the restroom alone.

On May 16, 2006, Hoover came to the office in the morning, shot Crump and Gibson, and then killed himself. The victims’ families sued American HomePatient and the estate of the killer. And they’ll be able to go after punitives from the company.

The company tried to get that part of the suit kicked out of court, but Rockingham County Circuit Judge John H. McGrath Jr. held in Crump v. Morris and American HomePatient Inc. that the families had alleged “sufficient facts to support the possibility of a finding of punitive damages by a jury.” Motion denied.

A Fairfax restaurant hired a rent-a-cop company to provide security services. When the restaurant and the contractor had a dispute over payment for those services, the security company sued. The contractor obtained a default judgment against the restaurant, and instituted garnishment proceedings. A year later, the underlying judgment against the restaurant was vacated.

The contractor sued again, claiming it was entitled to even more than the $16,000-plus it got through garnishing the restaurant’s bank account. The contractor based its claim on theories of unjust enrichment and quantum meruit. Not so fast, said Fairfax Circuit Judge Kathleen A. MacKay.

The contractor, Urban Protective Services, “could not contract to engage in private security services as it was not licensed as required by” Virginia Code § 9.1-139(A), the judge said. The contract was illegal as a matter of law, MacKay said. Fairfax Judge Michael P. McWeeny followed up by granting summary judgment for the restaurant in Urban Protective Services v. Great Latin Restaurants LLC.

Norfolk Circuit Clerk George Schaefer is overseeing an ambitious project: He wants to make his office paperless. Right now, his staff scans every civil filing that comes in the door. They’ve scanned almost all the land records – which, in an old jurisdiction such as Norfolk, date back to the 1700s. The Virginian-Pilot reports that Schaefer could cut $2 million off the cost of building a new courthouse by reducing the need for storage space.

Although no one here in the Old Dominion got the ax, the U.S. Attorney firings story now has a local angle: Attorney General Alberto Gonzales yesterday appointed Chuck Rosenberg, the U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, as his interim chief of staff, reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Rosenberg, who has past experience in the Justice Department, replaces Kyle Sampson, who quit last Monday amid calls for Gonzales’ own resignation. A Republican source said that Rosenberg will stay on the job in Alexandria and the new position is only temporary.

A discovery ruling in a black lung case may have ramifications for protecting work-product and confidential communications in other kinds of litigation.

Elm Grove Coal Company was trying to overturn black lung benefits awarded to a retired miner named Ivan Blake. The two physician experts who supported Blake’s claim admitted that Blake’s lawyer might have had something to do with the substance of their factual reports.

That being the case, Elm Grove may have a right to get a copy of draft reports and communications between Blake’s lawyers and the experts, according to the 4th Circuit in Elm Grove Coal v. Director, OWCP. The mine actually was trying to get at the “trustworthiness and reliability” of the doctor experts, the panel wrote, so the reports and communications were fair game. But the court said the situation might be different when it comes to consulting experts, as opposed to testifying experts.

U.S. Attorney John Brownlee and Attorney General Bob McDonnell made a joint announcement this morning that may strike fear in just about any law office…or at least send lawyers scurrying to check their internal procedures.

A woman who was a legal secretary in a Louisa County law firm has been indicted in Charlottesville federal court for identity theft, fraud and a number of other crimes.

She stands accused of taking the personal information of one of the firm’s partners – such as his birth date and Social Security number – to open a credit card account, adding herself as an authorized user. She also is charged with opening another account and using credit-line checks to get cash. And then she allegedly used the lawyer’s personal bank account, for which she also had access, to pay off the bills as they came into the office. The estimated total loss: $145,000. The Daily Progress has the report.