Well that didn’t take long!  Faster than a Porsche goes from 0 to 80 miles per hour in Northern Virginia traffic, a General Assembly subcommittee killed HB 1371, which would have eliminated criminal penalties for some speeding cases where the posted speed limit is high.  The subcommittee action occurred on the first day of the 2013 legislative session. In Virginia, one can be convicted of Reckless Driving by speed if one drives over 80 miles per

1. New state and federal laws and regulations will add employee rights and protections. In 2012, states like New Jersey and Oregon enacted laws protecting the jobless against hiring discrimination, and other states like California and Illinois enacted laws barring employers from demanding access to workers’ social networking accounts. The federal government is likely to follow suit with new protections proposed in recent bills, such as the Employment Non-Discrimination Act that bars sexual orientation discrimination,

The Supreme Court of Virginia, effective January 1, 2013, banned “speaking objections” in Rule 4:5 of the Rules of the Supreme Court of Virginia. “Speaking objections” are those include argument and suggestions along with the basis of the objection.  They are often used in depositions by a lawyer to tip off or “educate” his client as to a desired answer.  A classic example of a “speaking objection” is “Objection! You’ve asked that question already and

The U.S. District Court in Richmond, Virginia has denied the cross-motions for preliminary injunctions filed by rival grass seed companies, each of whom had asked the court to put a stop to the other’s allegedly false advertising claims. In the ongoing case of Scotts Company, LLC v. Pennington Seed, Inc., (Civil Action No. 3:12-cv-168) (Nov. 30, 2012), two of the biggest names in the grass seed/plant food business are suing each other over online and

A 69-year-old plaintiff who sued his former employer for allegedly violating the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (“ADEA”) learned a harsh lesson recently when the District Court awarded summary judgment to the employer: in discrimination cases, sometimes what actually happened isn’t nearly as important as what the employer believed to have happened. In Bandy v. Advance Auto Parts, Inc., Civil Action No. 7:11-cv-00365 (W.D. Va. Nov. 15, 2012), Roger Dean Bandy (“Bandy”) sued his former