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In Lewis-Gale Medical Center, LLC v. Alldredge, the Supreme Court of Virginia recently refused to broaden the range of circumstances under which a plaintiff could successfully assert a tortuous interference with contract claim.  The case involved a physician who was an employee of a physician staffing service under contract with a hospital to provide physician staffing.  After the hospital suspected the physician of encouraging labor unrest among the nursing staff, the hospital complained to the staffing service…

Wage and hour law violations have become a significant stumbling block for local companies in recent years.  There is no doubt that courts have seen an increase in litigation based on employers misclassifying or miscalculating employees’ wages under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”).  In the recent case of Jin v. Any Floors, Inc., et al., Civ. No. 1:10-cv-1201 (E.D. Va. Mar. 5, 2012), the Federal Court in the Eastern District of Virginia gave insight into

The U.S. District Court in Richmond, VA granted summary judgment earlier this month to a defendant school board in a suit alleging both race and age discrimination.  Judge Gibney’s memorandum opinion in Harris v. Powhatan County School Board (No. 3:11-cv-224) illustrates how critical it is for plaintiff employees to gather and present evidence of their employers’ discriminatory intent. Alexander Harris, a 70 year old African-American male, had worked for Powhatan County Schools for more than fifty

Federal employment law requires employees to first file notice with an administrative agency, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), before bringing a federal lawsuit claiming discrimination.  The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, covering Maryland, Virginia, and other mid-Atlantic states, has grappled for years with how much notice an employee must provide in the administrative process before bringing a discrimination lawsuit.  It has recently decided the issue under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in a

Recently, employers have found themselves the targets of RICO lawsuits for employing aliens who are unauthorized to work in the United States.  These lawsuits have been brought by other employees of the company, who are authorized to work, claiming that the employer’s hiring of “illegal aliens” unlawfully depressed their wages.  The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (which covers Maryland and Virginia) recently addressed such a lawsuit for the first time in Walters v.