The Virginia Appellate Lawyer’s Court of Appeals of Virginia Blog

The Court of Appeals released three published opinions and five unpublished opinions today.  If one didn’t know better, you might suspect the Court was clearing the decks before the summer hiatus (Editor’s note: One does know better and that is exactly what the Court is doing, look for more opinions leading up to the Fourth of July Weekend). Romario Bailey v. Commonwealth of Virginia  involves a misdemeanor appeal from a case that originated in a General District Court, which

Blake Andrew Mitchell, Jr. v. Commonwealth of Virginia is a published opinion from the Court of Appeals from a case previously refused an appeal, but which was remanded following an appeal to the Supreme Court in the rare instance of a “GVR” order.  A GVR, if you are not familiar with the term means that upon review of the petition for appeal, and without need of further briefing or argument, the Supreme Court “grants the petition, vacates the judgment of the lower court, and

Time for another mini-rant.  A client of mine has been out of work through most of the pandemic and has struggled to get government assistance, as the rules for getting and maintaining unemployment were constantly shifting.  She has a good work history as both a FOH and BOH employee in food service with some management experience.  He previous employer had promised to rehire her when he was able to reopen his restaurants, but decided to only reopen one and to staff it with fa

Just a short observation: If I was as obsessive about proofreading these posts as I am about correcting them when I am reading them after I post them, there would be a lot fewer errors to correct.

The saying “half a loaf is better than none” sometimes applies in the law, but it depends on which half of the loaf you get.  Yesterday I, along with co-counsel, had a court appearance on behalf of a client who was opposing a request for an injunction that was based on an interpretation of a prior order of the Court.  We were of opinion that the order contained an error in that there was language that seemed to be directly in conflict with the ruling the Court had indicated i

An attorney observing the virtual oral argument of the appeal of a case he had tried in the lower court was apparently not happy with the opposing side’s argument and made a certain gesture, considered rude in many circles, to his computer’s camera. When confronted with this behavior by the panel during the oral argument, the attorney said he was merely pointing at his broken computer. And that excuse did NOT fly with the judges.  The story on Above the Law indicates that the

I try to stay in my lane of summarizing and commenting on Virginia Court of Appeals’ opinions, leaving the commentary on the Mighty Seven to my colleague Steve Emmert.  But today’s opinion in Galiotos v. Galiotos has such a gem of legal wisdom that I could not resist.  I will leave the summary of the tale of woe — two brothers who were co-executors of their mother’s substantial estate who simply could not agree about, well, anything — to the aforementioned sage of Virginia Be