91 results for 'court:"Virginia Supreme Court"'.
J. Wooton reverses the lower court's order partially granting motions of two municipal police departments, their respective police chiefs and two officers to dismiss a motorist's amended complaint alleging the officers wrongfully arrested him for disorderly conduct, and later DUI, after he made remarks on how their vehicles were parked at an apartment complex while responding to a call for a vehicle break-in. The judge committed plain error by basing her immunity decisions on common law qualified immunity principles applicable only to the state of West Virginia or its employees and agents and not on the West Virginia Tort Claims Act applicable to political subdivisions and their employees. Reversed.
Court: West Virginia Supreme Court Of Appeals, Judge: Wooton, Filed On: May 9, 2024, Case #: 22-428, Categories: Government, Immunity, Police Misconduct
J. Russel finds the lower court improperly reversed the defendant's convictions. A bystander called the police when they noticed a man slumped over his steering wheel. The police awakened the defendant and detected a strong odor of alcohol on his breath and a faint odor of marijuana. Officers searched the car and found in the glove compartment a loaded pistol and a bag with 24 grams of heroin. The defendant successfully argued to the lower court that he didn't know about the contraband since the car was his mother's and only drove it several days a week. Maintenance receipts in the glovebox showed he used the car more frequently than led on, and their existence showed he likely knew what was in the glove box. Reversed.
Court: Virginia Supreme Court, Judge: Russel , Filed On: May 9, 2024, Case #: 230511 , Categories: Drug Offender, Evidence, Dui
J. Powell finds the lower court properly determined the originating court lacked jurisdiction. A patient in southwestern Virginia went to a medical center in nearby North Carolina for evaluation and treatment after complaining of a rash. Doctors met with the patient multiple times and communicated with the family via phone when they had inquiries. Despite seeing the patient for a long period, the doctors continued to push off having a biopsy done, allowing his soon-to-be-discovered skin cancer to increase in severity. The emails, text messages, and telephone calls from the North Carolina doctors constituted transacting business for the purpose of exercising longarm jurisdiction. Still, the communications did not qualify activities taking place within Virginia. The actual treatment occurred in North Carolina and the medical center did not maintain a presence or solicit business in Virginia. Affirmed.
Court: Virginia Supreme Court, Judge: Powell, Filed On: May 9, 2024, Case #: 230260, Categories: Jurisdiction, Medical Malpractice
J. Russel finds the lower court improperly concluded that sovereign immunity barred the successor's claims. The Virginia Department of Transportation contracted a contractor for construction inspection and permitted them to bill VDOT for certain overhead costs, including the cost of rental vehicles. Because of the nature of the projects at issue, VDOT, in turn, could seek reimbursement from the federal government for the expenses it reimbursed so long as VDOT complied with Federal Acquisition Regulation provisions. The FAR clauses purportedly did not allow VDOT to receive reimbursement for expenses paid to the successor, an entity under its common control. The parties eventually mediated the claims and agreed upon a settlement agreement that the contractor felt it had no choice, given its economic situation, but to sign. It later received information previously withheld that led to the suit, filed in part to invalidate the settlement agreement. Sovereign immunity doesn’t apply to claims based on express contracts. Reversed.
Court: Virginia Supreme Court, Judge: Russel , Filed On: May 9, 2024, Case #: 230365, Categories: Government, Immunity, Contract
J. Bunn grants the state's writ seeking an order prohibiting enforcement of the lower court's order dismissing a six-count indictment charging defendants, a Monongalia County couple, with child abuse, and neglect causing bodily injury of two of their three adopted children stemming from excessive corporal punishment. The since-retired judge exceeded her authority in granting the defense's motion to dismiss the indictment due to the "numerous hours of testimony" she heard in the related abuse and neglect case resulting in termination of the couple's parental rights.
Court: West Virginia Supreme Court Of Appeals, Judge: Bunn, Filed On: May 3, 2024, Case #: 23-155, Categories: Criminal Procedure, Child Victims
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J. Walker reverses the lower court's original order sentencing defendant to 2 to10 years in prison after entering a Kennedy plea the previous February for the death of another motorist she caused in 2014 while driving under the influence. The judge committed plain error and violated Rule 11 of the Rules of Criminal Procedure when he participated in the plea negotiations and caused defendant to detrimentally rely upon his assurance she would be sentenced on home confinement in exchange for her plea. Reversed.
Court: West Virginia Supreme Court Of Appeals, Judge: Walker, Filed On: April 25, 2024, Case #: 22-672, Categories: Sentencing, Dui
J. Walker reverses in part the lower court's order granting injunctive relief to the city for enforcement of a combined $198,150 fine against the construction company and its owner for building and fire code violations issued by the city's municipal court the previous August, and appointment of a special commissioner to oversee sale of the building the construction company used as a rental unit. While the judge did not abuse her discretion by granting the city's request for injunction for enforcement of the judgments, she erred by appointing the special commissioner to move forward with sale of the building without the issuance and return of a writ of fieri facias. Reversed in part.
Court: West Virginia Supreme Court Of Appeals, Judge: Walker , Filed On: April 25, 2024, Case #: 22-0503, Categories: Municipal Law, Property, Enforcement Of Judgments
J. Hutchison reverses the Intermediate Court of Appeals' decision affirming the West Virginia Workers' Compensation Board of Review's finding that the deputy sheriff should be awarded 13% permanent partial disability for injuries to his back after lifting a bomb-detecting robot from the back of a truck. Based on evidence the deputy submitted showing he has a 25% whole person impairment with 12% apportioned impairment to a pre-existing condition, the ICA's judgment is contrary to the plain language of the statute that "requires both proof of a preexisting condition(s) and proof of 'a definitely ascertainable impairment resulting from' the preexisting condition for the disability to be apportioned.'" Reversed.
Court: West Virginia Supreme Court Of Appeals, Judge: Hutchison, Filed On: April 22, 2024, Case #: 23-43, Categories: Employment, Government, Workers' Compensation
J. Kelsey grants the defendant's habeas petition and order his early release. A law passed in Virginia's legislature amended the earned-sentence credit program. Under the new early-release program, prisoners with qualifying convictions are eligible to receive credits at a higher rate of up to 15 days of credit for every 30 days served. The amendment specifically excludes those with murder convictions but not attempted murder convictions.
Court: Virginia Supreme Court, Judge: Kelsey , Filed On: April 18, 2024, Case #: 230514, Categories: Habeas, Murder, Sentencing
J. Hutchison affirms the lower court's order denying defendant's motion to correct its order for a six-month suspended sentence on a misdemeanor charge of joyriding in lieu of 10-days of actual jail time followed by one-year unsupervised probation to reflect time-served for good behavior. The judge did not abuse his discretion by instructing defendant to file a separate civil suit against the West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation within three months, then denying her motion when she failed to provide notice of a suit.
Court: West Virginia Supreme Court Of Appeals, Judge: Hutchison, Filed On: April 17, 2024, Case #: 22-685, Categories: Burglary, Sentencing, Vehicle
J. Walker affirms the lower court's order granting defendant only 30 days for time served while he was on bond on a malicious wounding and wanton endangerment charge arrest. Though the judge erred by not considering the 233 days defendant spent incarcerated following revocation of his bond, the court finds the error harmless since when he was ultimately sentenced on the Raleigh County charges, the judge gave him credit for the time spent awaiting sentencing on the Fayette County charges. Affirmed.
Court: West Virginia Supreme Court Of Appeals, Judge: Walker, Filed On: April 12, 2024, Case #: 22-759, Categories: Sentencing, Dui, Bribery
[Consolidated.] J. Wooton affirms in part, and reverses in part the lower court's orders granting the university's motion for summary judgment in the two former campus police officers' suits alleging retaliatory discharge when the university terminated their employment after they both complained of a special arrangement between it and a county magistrate to automatically dispose of criminal charges involving student athletes by sentencing them to community service, and one for filing a complaint with the West Virginia Ethics Commission against a fellow officer for his personal use of campus police vehicle. The judge erred in finding the former officers failed to establish a prima facie case of retaliation since their complaints of wrongdoing, while not in close proximity to the time of their termination, were done in "good faith" and to the "appropriate authority" and could weigh in favor to a jury that the university's stated reasons for their termination were pretextual.
Court: West Virginia Supreme Court Of Appeals, Judge: Wooton, Filed On: April 11, 2024, Case #: 22-609, Categories: Education, Employment, Whistleblowers
J. McCullough finds the lower court improperly reversed a defendant’s conviction for use of a firearm in the commission of a felon. The defendant fired a shotgun at an open window, badly wounding his girlfriend. He was indicted for several felonies; the most serious of those was aggravated malicious wounding, carrying the possibility of a life sentence. The defense strategy at trial was to contest only one issue: whether the defendant fired the gun with malice instead of accidentally or recklessly. The defendant pleaded not guilty to the other crimes but didn’t contest them when the evidence came in. The “approbate and reprobate” doctrine bars the defendant’s attempt to challenge the sufficiency of the evidence on the charge of use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. Ends of justice may help a convicted defendant to overcome a conviction where his lawyer failed to object or raised an issue too late, but it doesn’t cover intentional, strategic choices like this one. Reversed.
Court: Virginia Supreme Court, Judge: McCullough , Filed On: April 4, 2024, Case #: 230343 , Categories: Evidence, Firearms, Sentencing
J. Mann finds the lower court improperly refused to submit a jury instruction supporting the hospital's theory of the case. A test conducted at an emergency room showed a patient's blood sodium level to be low. Still, the doctor missed the abnormality and sent the patient home with instructions to see her family doctor and a gastroenterologist for abdominal pain. Two weeks later, the patient collapsed and suffered a head wound. The patient successfully sued the hospital and doctor for failure to diagnose her with low blood sodium levels. The defense offered superseding-cause instructions and also one telling the jurors that if the injuries could have resulted from multiple possible causes, at least one of which wasn’t the doctor’s fault, and they couldn’t ascertain which one was the cause, they had to return a defense verdict. The offered instruction was a correct statement of the law and was supported by more than a scintilla of evidence. Reversed.
Court: Virginia Supreme Court, Judge: Mann, Filed On: April 4, 2024, Case #: 230199 , Categories: Jury, Due Process, Medical Malpractice
J. Bunn grants as moulded the widow's writ prohibiting enforcement of the lower court's order appointing a special commissioner to obtain and submit evidence regarding the administration of her late husband's estate and sell the estate’s property. The trial judge exceeded his authority following an evidentiary hearing when he granted the step-children's motion for summary judgment, accepted the special commissioner's report and ordered him to sell any of the estate's property despite ambiguity as to its valuation and ownership.
Court: West Virginia Supreme Court Of Appeals, Judge: Bunn, Filed On: March 26, 2024, Case #: 22-853, Categories: Civil Procedure, Wills / Probate
J. Wooton accepts the recommendation of the Judicial Hearing Board to publicly reprimand and impose other sanctions on the Morgan County family law judge for her role in drafting a letter on behalf of the West Virginia Family Law Judicial Association in support of a now-former family law judge facing disciplinary action in 2020. Despite her lack of candor in admitting any knowledge of the letter, the court finds the recommended discipline appropriate since her role in editing it "did not arise from performance of her judicial duties and related more to personal matters than public ones."
Court: West Virginia Supreme Court Of Appeals, Judge: Wooton , Filed On: March 18, 2024, Case #: 22-862, Categories: Government, Judiciary, Sanctions
J. Armstead affirms the lower court's order granting the municipality summary judgment in the resident's suit claiming it is partially responsible for injuries she sustained from a fall when her foot was caught in wire wrapped around a pole owned by a church where the wire extended onto a defective portion of the adjacent sidewalk. The resident failed to demonstrate the city knew the wire was a hazard since there was never any prior reported problem in the 10 years since it was put there, and she had in the previous year walked along that portion of sidewalk without incident. Affirmed.
Court: West Virginia Supreme Court Of Appeals, Judge: Armstead, Filed On: March 15, 2024, Case #: 22-625, Categories: Government, Tort, Negligence
J. Armstead reverses the lower court's order granting the state tax department's motion to dismiss the non-profit tax news publisher's suit seeking to compel the department to disclose copies of current field audit manuals, audit training manuals, and training and continuing education materials under the West Virginia Freedom of Information Act. The judge erred in accepting carte blanche the department's reliance on the section of W. Va. Code prohibiting the release of documents that disclose the standards used “for the selection of [tax] returns for examination or data used or to be used for determining such standards” without first requiring it to produce a Vaughn Index "to detail why the requested information is exempt from disclosure and identify which exemption applies." Reversed.
Court: West Virginia Supreme Court Of Appeals, Judge: Armstead, Filed On: March 15, 2024, Case #: 22-491, Categories: Government, Public Record, Tax
J. Wooton reverses the lower court's Dec. 1 order granting the public library's and parks and recreation district's writ of mandamus compelling the Board to disburse funds withheld from fiscal years 2024 and 2025 from a 2018 excess levy. Since all other county boards of education can seek approval of excess levies without restrictions, the court finds the obligations to fund the library and district in the 1967 and 2011 legislative special acts violates the equal protection clause of the West Virginia Constitution. Reversed.
Court: West Virginia Supreme Court Of Appeals, Judge: Wooton , Filed On: March 15, 2024, Case #: 23-691, Categories: Education, Government, Tax
J. Walker reverses the lower court's order denying the social services agency’s motion to dismiss two negligence claims from a woman's suit claiming it violated the West Virginia Child Welfare Act and Human Trafficking Statute, when the child protective services worker assigned to her case lured her into confiding in him and then supplied her with drugs and alcohol and sexually assaulted her at a hotel. The judge erred in not finding the department has qualified immunity since the woman failed either to state a claim in her amended complaint of how the department negligently violated the Child Welfare Act or identify any "bad actors" within the department who failed to properly train and supervise the worker. Reversed.
Court: West Virginia Supreme Court Of Appeals, Judge: Walker, Filed On: March 5, 2024, Case #: 22-0389, Categories: Government, Immunity, Negligence
J. McCullough finds the lower court improperly determined that the originating court abused its discretion in declining to provide funds to retain several experts who would assist the defendant in challenging his confession. The defendant admitted to four counts of rape and one count of object sexual penetration of a child under the age of thirteen. The defendant later sought to hire a psychologist to assist him in court on the subject of mental deficits that make a person vulnerable to coercive interrogation tactics. The jury could view the video of the interrogation and evaluate the impact of the police tactics for themselves meaning he did not require an expert on the subject of police interrogation tactics.
Court: Virginia Supreme Court, Judge: McCullough, Filed On: February 28, 2024, Case #: 220382, Categories: Jury, Sex Offender, Child Victims
J. Kelsey finds the lower court improperly granted judgment to the vehicle repair shop. A New Jersey man brought his vintage Mustang to a Virginia repair shop. A friend of the New Jersey man, who lives in Virginia, found the repair work unsatisfactory, and the New Jersey man demanded the repair shop to continue work and delay his retrieval of the car until it was satisfactory. The repair shop, dissatisfied with the amount of complaints, sought to sell the car under the Virginia Abandoned Vehicle Act. The repair shop notified the New Jersey man, as required by the Act, via a letter to his parent's home in Michigan despite having only ever communicated with the customer with telecommunications to sell the car to a third party before the New Jersey man noticed. Reversed.
Court: Virginia Supreme Court, Judge: Kelsey, Filed On: February 15, 2024, Case #: 230115, Categories: Property, Vehicle, Consumer Law
J. Mann finds the lower court properly denied the motion to suppress an out-of-court identification and the subsequent in-court identification. A masked man attempted to rob a man and his son, but the man grabbed the gun when he noticed by the size of its barrel that it was a BB gun. The responding police officer, after hearing the masked man was skinny, young, Caucasian, and brown-eyed, showed the victim a photo of a light-skinned Latino resident who lived in the area, and the man immediately recognized him as the assailant. The officer’s comment acknowledged that he was unsure about his suspicion of the light-skinned man and had only provided the photograph of him because the officer believed he roughly matched the description given by the victim. The officer’s comments did not create circumstances that induced the victim to inevitably identify the light-skinned man. Affirmed.
Court: Virginia Supreme Court, Judge: Mann, Filed On: February 8, 2024, Case #: 220445, Categories: Evidence, Robbery, Due Process
J. Kelsey finds the lower court improperly dismissed the French teacher's state constitutional claims for failure to state a cause of action. The teacher was fired after refusing to use a student's preferred pronouns, although he used the student's preferred name. The school board's decision to fire the employee for not participating in compelled speech that went against his religious beliefs fails strict scrutiny. Reversed.
Court: Virginia Supreme Court, Judge: Kelsey , Filed On: December 14, 2023, Case #: 211061 , Categories: Education, Employment, Lgbtq
J. Chafin finds the lower court improperly sentenced the substance abuser to 60 days in prison. The substance abuser overdosed on drugs after recently being released from prison following a 2-year stint for drug use. Virginia's legislature made a law that limits the amount of time someone can be sentenced after breaking the terms of their probation related to drug use to only 14 days. Reversed.
Court: Virginia Supreme Court, Judge: Chafin, Filed On: December 14, 2023, Case #: 230127, Categories: Drug Offender, Probation, Sentencing
J. Powell denies the prisoner's motion for release due to ineffective counsel. The prison was convicted of several crimes stemming from a home-invasion robbery with aggravated malicious wounding at his wife's boss's house. The prisoner argues his counsel should have argued for insanity rather than involuntary intoxication. Still, the record establishes that trial counsel made a thorough investigation of the law and facts and chose a course of action that they believed had the best chance of success. Affirmed.
Court: Virginia Supreme Court, Judge: Powell, Filed On: December 14, 2023, Case #: 211114 , Categories: Habeas, Ineffective Assistance, Robbery
J. Russell affirms the commission's decision to dismiss the network provider's petition for a declaratory judgment for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The provider sought compensation from a private construction company that worked with the Virginia Department of Transportation's expansion of a road that required the relocation of four of the provider's facilities located in public rights-of-way. The origin of this claim is the contract between the provider and VDOT, which the commission and court are barred from reviewing.
Court: Virginia Supreme Court, Judge: Russle, Filed On: November 30, 2023, Case #: 230400 , Categories: Construction, Agency, Contract
J. Kelsey finds the lower court improperly granted the assailant's appeal of a restitution ordered to be paid to the Virginia Department of Medical Assistance Services. The assailant brutally stabbed a victim who could not pay his medical bills, causing the Department to foot the bill. The assailant argued that the victim himself was the only proper payee of a restitution award. And because the victim never had to pay anything, he hadn’t incurred any expenses that could be the subject of a restitution award. The restitution statute means that regardless of whether the victim ultimately had to pay the medical bills, he incurred them, and that’s enough to empower a trial court to require restitution to the entity that ultimately laid out the money. Reversed.
Court: Virginia Supreme Court, Judge: Kelsey, Filed On: November 22, 2023, Case #: 220596, Categories: Assault, Restitution
J. Bunn affirms the lower court's order dismissing the cable splicing technician's wrongful discharge suit after reporting to his supervisors suspected acts of sabotage of the telecommunication company's equipment that, due to disruption of services, constitutes a criminal offense under state law. The judge did not err in determining the technician failed to make a claim of how the reporting of his co-workers' wrongdoing violated a substantial public policy. Affirmed.
Court: West Virginia Supreme Court Of Appeals, Judge: Bunn, Filed On: November 9, 2023, Case #: 20-0040, Categories: Communications, Employment Retaliation
[Consolidated] J. Bunn vacates the lower court's order separately terminating the Wyoming County father's and mother's parental rights to their two children. It was error to adjudicate the father and mother as neglectful parents of their then-8-month-old daughter based on their silence on how they may have harmed her after an emergency room physician reported suspected bruising on her forehead when the mother sought treatment for her high fever. Also, nothing supports the judge's adjudication of the parents of abusing or neglecting their newborn son since he was removed from their custody by emergency order immediately following his birth. Vacated.
Court: West Virginia Supreme Court Of Appeals, Judge: Bunn, Filed On: November 9, 2023, Case #: 22-602, Categories: Evidence, Family Law, Government