The VLW Blog

The Supreme Court of Virginia has let stand an $8 million verdict for the family of a high school senior who was killed in a car wreck in Fairfax County in September 2002.

The court heard arguments last month in Mongold v. Chu, Record No. 061390, and concluded in an unpublished order on Friday that there was no reversible error in the case.

David Chu was a passenger in a car that had stopped at a stoplight when the driver of truck owned Danella Companies Inc., a Pennsylvania based trucking company, fell asleep and crashed into the rear end of the teenagers’ vehicle.

The company admitted liability to ward off testimony that its policies almost guaranteed sleep deprivation and fatigue in its employees. Its principal argument on appeal was that the Chu family’s attorney, Gregory L. Murphy of Alexandria, had insisted on presenting such evidence, even though it was irrelevant and highly prejudicial to the company.

The Supreme Court held, however, that the trial judge struck a proper balance between evidence that was probative of the family’s level of grief and testimony that was unduly prejudicial.

The committee appointed to recommend a replacement for Virginia State Bar Executive Director Thomas A. Edmonds had hoped to have a candidate by the VSB’s annual meeting next month.

But the committee has decided to re-advertise for the position, said Phillip V. Anderson, the immediate past VSB president and chairman of the committee.

The first advertisements produced 14 candidates, seven of whom were interviewed to narrow the field to three finalists, Anderson said. However, one of those finalists received a private-sector offer that the VSB can’t match, and the committee decided to start over.

“We’ve had some really good applications,” he added. “It’s just that we weren’t quite ready to pull the trigger.”

He said he expects to set a July 1 deadline for the second round of applications, with the committee’s recommendation put back to late summer or fall. VSB Council and the Supreme Court of Virginia have the final say on the appointment.

Edmonds’ retirement is effective at the end of the year.

It is good to be Sen. Tommy Norment this month.

In the past few weeks, the College of William and Mary, where he went to law school, laid two big awards on him.

This afternoon’s e-mail says that now Virginia Military Institute, the senator’s undergraduate alma mater, is saluting him as well.

The board of trustees of the VMI Foundation has announced it will bestow its Distinguished Service Award on Norment, VMI ’68. The award is the foundation’s highest honor, and it is presented to those alumni and friends of the Institute who have displayed exemplary dedication to the Institute and its mission and worked diligently on behalf of the foundation and VMI.

Norment served as a trustee of the foundation from 1997 to 2005. He will receive the Distinguished Service Award and address the Corps of Cadets at VMI’s annual Founders Day Convocation on Nov. 9 at Cameron Hall.

Blake Morant, who has been a member of the Washington and Lee law faculty for 10 years, has been named dean of the Wake Forest University law school. He starts his new job July 1.

Morant’s teaching specialties are in contracts, administrative law and communications law. He is the current associate dean for academic affairs at W&L Law and served as director of the school’s Frances Lewis Law Center from 2001 to 2006. During his tenure as director, Morant organized a celebration of the 25th anniversary of the law center, featuring a keynote address by the late U.S. District Judge Robert R. Merhige Jr.

He is a member of the Commonwealth of Virginia Gender Bias Task Force. In 2000, he sponsored a colloquium on the findings of the Virginia Supreme Court’s taskforce investigating gender bias in the courts of the Commonwealth; the remarks from that colloquium were published in the Washington and Lee Law Review the following year.

A seven-year man at the University of Virginia, Morant worked in several capacities for the Office of the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General before entering academia. He taught law at American University and the University of Toledo before joining the W&L faculty in 1997.

Lawyers’ business clients have used arbitration for years to resolve commercial disputes.

But there’s business, and then, there’s bidness.

Senior U.S. District Judge Robert G. Doumar had a case in Norfolk federal district court last month, Al-Haddad Commodities Corp. v. Toepfer Int’l Asia PTE Ltd. (VLW 007-3-147), that pitted an international commodities trader against an agricultural commodity trading business based in Hamburg, Germany.

The parties’ contract dispute over a shipment of “US No. 2 Long Grain White Rice” to Iraq went to arbitration before the U.S. Rice Millers’ Association. That trade group is headquartered in Arlington, but the arbitration was conducted before a five-member panel at the Houston, Texas offices of American Rice Inc. The panel ordered Toepfer to pay ACC a $2 million-plus award.

Apparently English law governed the contract. Toepfer’s lawyer claimed the panel chair at one point said he was “not interested in ‘all that fancy lawyer stuff.’” The losing side called the panel hearing “painfully farcical” and a “complete sham.”

But Doumar said he detected “something of a culture clash in this case, in which an arbitration panel of American businessmen who apparently pride themselves on providing quick commercial decisions held a hearing in Houston, Texas, over a contract governed by English law.”

Toepfer’s lawyer practiced arbitrations extensively in England, according to Doumar’s opinion. The attorney said he had “never before (and hopefully will never again) experience[] anything quite like the arbitration before” the Rice Millers’ Association.

“Of course, Houston is not London,” Doumar observed in understatement. “In Texas lore, cowboys and Indians long ago replaced the knights and dragons of English lore.”

He confirmed the arbitration award for ACC.

Yesterday, VLW posted a blog item entitled “Federal court as defense haven.” The item reported remarks made at a seminar held at the Spring Section meetings of the Virginia Association of Defense Attorneys at Keswick Hall May 11.

Over many years, reporters from Virginia Lawyers Weekly have attended numerous meetings held by Virginia bar groups, including the VADA. Our reporters frequently have filed stories and news items after attending these meetings. This is what we do.

In the normal course of business, such meetings are public and comments made from a podium can be, and frequently are, reported.

While we maintain that the May 11 Keswick seminar in question was public and that any remarks made there are no different from statements made at other open meetings, the speaker in question subsequently stated that she believed that the meeting was private.

We can agree to disagree on whether the meeting was public or private. But as a courtesy to the speaker, we have withdrawn the blog item.

Glenn Lewis, president of the Virginia Bar Association and divorce law expert, is no stranger to television.

Lewis (pictured at right) had his own cable TV gig in Fairfax for years. During the Bush-Gore ballot count in 2000, he was a stateside commentator for the BBC.

Lewis has taken his game to a new level.

Last week, he was on Dr. Phil. Really. Dr. Phil, the enormously popular TV shrink. Big bald guy from Texas. Just look in any bookstore. You can’t miss him.

Dr. Phil highlighted a case from Virginia that, frankly, is a little creepy. In a feature called, “Obsessive Love,” a guy named Jeffrey is so obsessed with his wife Jennifer that he follows her every move. He agrees to seek treatment, but won’t let go.

Lewis is the woman’s lawyer and appeared on Dr. Phil’s show with her. Lewis managed to get a “No Contact Order” entered against Jeffrey. Jeffrey wouldn’t play ball with the “Dr. Phil” crew after a while, revoking the consent he granted to his counselors to talk to the show. He traveled from California to Virginia and was arrested “just miles from Jennifer.”

Apparently Jeffrey is now “in jail, without bond, awaiting trial,” according to Dr. Phil’s team.

Sen. Tommy Norment, R-James City County, and the College of William and Mary have quite a thing for each other.

Norment, a graduate of the W and M law school and a partner in the Williamsburg office of Kaufman & Canoles PC, represents an area that includes the school’s Williamsburg campus. He is one of the college’s staunchest supporters on Capitol Hill.

Norment worked to secure $5.4 million for the W and M School of Education, which will be getting a new building, thanks to the General Assembly. With that money, the project now can move forward with planning and design.

The ed school showed its appreciation by honoring Norment with the Jo Lynne DeMary Award last month. Named for a William and Mary alumna who served as state superintendent of schools, the DeMary award recognizes individuals for leadership in education.

And tomorrow, William and Mary President Gene Nichol will present the college’s Prentis Award to Norment at a reception in his honor.

Prentis Awards are given annually to community members whose civic involvement benefits the community and the College.

And for whom is this award named? The Prentis family owned an 18th-century shop on Duke of Gloucester Street that was a hub of colonial life. Members of the Prentis family have been friends of the College and the community since 1720, when the store was first established in Williamsburg.

The lead story in this week’s issue of Virginia Lawyers Weekly presents a case with a first-impression issue of corporate law.

In WAKA LLC v. Humphrey, a case involving an adult kickball league, Fairfax Circuit Judge Leslie M. Alden found that members of an LLC owe no fiduciary duty to one other.

Spilman, Thomas & Battle PLLC, a 102-lawyer firm based in Charleston, W. Va., has offices in Pennsylvania and North Carolina but not in Virginia.

That will change July 1 when Spilman absorbs the seven-lawyer Roanoke firm of Melchionna, Day, Ammar & Black PC.

The combined firms will take the Spilman name, and the four shareholders of Melchionna Day will become members of the firm. All associates and staff will join Spilman as well.

Michael J. Basile, managing member of Spilman, said, “With Spilman offices currently in West Virginia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, the addition of an outstanding office of Virginia attorneys creates geographic continuity and greatly enhances our strategic vision for serving the legal needs of the Mid-Atlantic region.”

Olin Melchionna, senior member of the Roanoke firm, said, “With Spilman’s resources, we can provide our clients with access to a wider range of legal fields as well as the resources and staffing to help in the larger matters of our clients.”