Don’t think you can get out of your non-compete agreement just because you’re a contractor and not an employee. While it’s true that independent contractors, unlike regular employees, may not owe a fiduciary duty of loyalty to the party that hired them (hence their independence), a business may legitimately require…
In Virginia, non-compete agreements are legal but they are not favored and not always enforceable. As restraints on free trade, they will only be enforced if the employer can prove the terms are (1) no broader than necessary to protect the employer’s legitimate business interests, (2) not unduly harsh or…
Suppose you want to sue a contractor for breaching a contract, or you want to sue a competitor for stealing your employees. What kind of lawyer do you need? Should you just whip out the Yelp app and search for the nearest five-star-rated lawyer? If you’ve tried that, you may…
Litigation tactics designed to bully, harass, intimidate, or embarrass an opponent or opposing counsel are not permitted in Virginia courts. While litigants may gain great satisfaction from the knowledge that their lawsuit or counterclaim is causing the other side a great deal of expense and inconvenience, if the primary goal…
Here in Virginia, employment is presumed to be “at-will”: an employer can terminate the employment relationship with or without cause, upon reasonable notice, for any reason or no reason at all. Employees have the same right. The employment-at-will doctrine is particularly strong in Virginia, but there are some limited exceptions.…
To state a cause of action for fraud in Virginia, a plaintiff must plead that there was (1) a false representation of (2) a material fact, (3) made intentionally and knowingly, (4) with intent to mislead, and that the plaintiff (5) reasonably relied on that false representation and (6) that…
This isn’t what I was taught in law school 20 years ago, but res judicata comes in many flavors. I was taught that there were only two doctrines relating to re-litigating civil claims: claim preclusion, known as res judicata, and issue preclusion, known as collateral estoppel. That’s wrong, at least…
As you may know from past posts, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) enforces five federal laws that prohibit employment discrimination against applicants for federal employment, current federal employees, or former federal employees: Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended (prohibiting discrimination on the basis…
Derivative actions are a mainstay of modern business litigation. They allow a shareholder of a corporation to enforce a right the corporation has but is wrongfully refusing to enforce. Normally, corporate management would be responsible for deciding whether to pursue litigation against someone, but sometimes it’s the management itself–such as…
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…