So your fiancée broke off your engagement because she fell in love with your best friend and decided she likes him better. On top of that, she won’t return the $20,000 engagement ring you bought her. So the marriage is off, your finances are in shambles, and your (former) best…
Legal claims are made up of elements. To sue somebody and win, you need to allege and eventually prove each element that makes up the legal theory on which you’re suing. And oftentimes, those elements have distinct legal meanings that differ from their dictionary definitions. Failure to pay close attention…
To state a plausible breach-of-fiduciary-duty claim in Virginia, a plaintiff must allege enough facts to prove (1) the existence of a fiduciary duty, (2) the breach of that duty, and (3) resulting damages. The first element—existence of a fiduciary duty—is often the most difficult to prove. Fiduciary duties can arise…
Everybody knows you can get in trouble for breaching a contract. But did you know that you can also get sued for inducing someone else to breach a contract that you’re not even a party to? Virginia, like many states, recognizes a cause of action for “tortious interference with contract.”…
Much has been made of the latest amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, effective December 1, 2015, some going so far as to call them “the most significant change to federal civil practice in the last decade.” In particular, Rule 26 has been amended to include a new…
Most Virginia litigators will tell you that there are four elements to a claim of tortious interference with contractual relations in Virginia: (1) the existence of a valid contractual relationship or business expectancy; (2) knowledge of the relationship or expectancy on the part of the interferor; (3) intentional interference inducing…
Back in 2012, the Alexandria Circuit Court ruled in an Internet defamation case that discovery could be obtained from a nonresident third party by serving a subpoena on the company’s registered agent in Virginia. That decision was reversed last week by the Virginia Supreme Court in an unambiguous ruling that…
Suppose you’re a senior executive at a company that regularly transacts large volumes of business with another company, when the wife of the other company’s CEO files what you believe to be an unwarranted sexual harassment lawsuit against your company, presumably with the consent or approval of her husband. I…
“I made a copy of the client list because they are my clients; I won the business for my company” is a refrain I hear often in consulting with former employees. We’re sorry to have to tell you that this commonly held belief is not accurate. Those clients and customers…
A plaintiff filing a lawsuit usually wants to demand as much money as possible, both for the intimidation value and because in Virginia state court, you cannot recover damages in an amount greater than what you asked for in the complaint, even if the jury awards it. Plaintiffs are thus…