When scanning the docket of domestic relations cases these days, it is unfortunately not uncommon to find allegations of verbal and physical abuse between spouses.  Stereotypically, one might assume that this kind of unfortunate behavior only involves husbands who are abusive to their wives.  However, the fact of the matter is that either husbands or wives can be the victims of abuse. For example, in the recent Fairfax County Circuit Court case of  Ibrayeva v.

In a case that the Court of Appeals of Virginia itself calls “particularly troublesome,” the Court affirmed a Perjury conviction of a man in a case where the Court itself noted that the evidence on the record was insufficient for the conviction.  Really. In this case, Stephen Sutphin was convicted at trial of Perjury and sentenced to four months of active jail time.  He appealed, arguing that the Commonwealth failed to prove some key Common

Can an ABC licensee lose its license to sell alcoholic beverages merely by filing its annual report late? Absolutely! Notice that we did not ask “Can an ABC licensee lose its license by failing to file its annual report.  We merely asked “…by filing its report late?”  In a recent ABC case, the Hearing Officer revoked a merchant’s license to sell alcohol because the annual report was late and the inventory had not yet been

It is not often that a federal appellate court will write one of George Carlin’s “Seven Dirty Words” over a dozen times in a published legal opinion — often in all capital letters.  However, in a US Court of Appeals case that is destined to be the inspiration for legal careers of 12-year-old boys everywhere, the Court yesterday said that a business could not trademark the word “!@#$%^&*.”  (See, not even we can get ourselves

Earlier this month, the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals unanimously affirmed a federal court’s dismissal of an employee’s claims of Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) discrimination and retaliation for his firing after hurting his back and neck on the job.  The court considered whether the plaintiff was “disabled” under the ADA, and ultimately determined that he failed to show that his alleged injuries rose to the level of a disability as a matter of