When the Virginia Supreme Court decided Home Paramount Pest Control Companies v. Justin Shaffer five years ago, it stressed the importance of the “function” consideration in analyzing the enforceability of non-compete agreements. To be enforceable, the court held, a noncompete agreement should not purport to restrict the employee from engaging…
In Virginia, independent contractors can be held to noncompete agreements to the same extent as regular employees. But beware. A Fairfax County Circuit Court judge decided last month that all bets are off if the “independent contractor” should really have been classified as an employee. Although the Virginia Supreme Court…
Suppose you find yourself involved in litigation in Fairfax County, Virginia, and you want the court to take some kind of action. Perhaps you want the judge to order the plaintiff to attach a copy of the contract to the complaint. Maybe it’s a libel case and you want to…
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…
The Stored Communications Act (“SCA”), found at 18 U.S.C. §§ 2701-2712, establishes both a criminal offense and a civil cause of action against anyone who “intentionally accesses without authorization a facility through which an electronic communication service is provided” or “intentionally exceeds an authorization to access that facility,” and by…
A “teaming agreement” is an agreement between two or more contractors to “team up” by combining their resources to bid on a major government contract, thereby increasing the likelihood of securing the work. Often, they will be drafted to require that the prime contractor use the subcontractor specified in the…
Earlier this month I wrote about the case of a dentist who had sued a consultant for breach of fiduciary duty and failed. The court in that case found that the allegations were insufficient to establish the existence of an agency relationship, and without such a relationship, the consultant owed…
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…