As the great and the good work on revising the rules for the expanded Court of Appeals of Virginia, I have a question: Should the Court of Appeals have binding assignments of error?
The current rules, of course, require assignments of error, and a key part of the revision project is minimizing any unnecessary changes.
Mayer Brown’s Federal Appellate Practice has a useful checklist of questions to ask when evaluating potential issues for appeal:
I’m still trying to wrap my head around SCOVA’s recent opinion in Lucas v. Riverhill Poultry, Inc.
Lucas seems to say that a plaintiff who fails to move the trial court to reconsider an interlocutory ruling has waived the issue for appeal.
That strikes me as patently wrong–and not in an academic way, but in
What better way to celebrate Memorial Day than 1000 or so words about some recent SCOVA appellate arcana?
(You can probably tell by now if this post is for you.)
Last week, SCOVA handed down Bonanno v. Quinn, an opinion that Justice Mims has thoughtfully crammed with nerdiana. If you’re still reading, Bonanno grew out of an
Courtesy of Farnam Street, here is some writing advice from John Swartzwelder, the funniest writer from the Golden Age of The Simpsons (and the guy who wrote the lyrics to Spider Pig):
Since writing is very hard and rewriting is comparatively easy and rather fun, I always write my scripts all the way
SCOVA handed down a new Rule 1:1 opinion this week, Kosko v. Ramser. The basic setup is straightforward: A med-mal plaintiff took a nonsuit on the second day of trial, September 11, 2019. Because the nonsuit was within seven days of trial, the defendant asked for its costs under Code § 8.01-380(C).
The
Longtime readers know that my favorite appellate genre is probable the “The Standard of Review Decides Cases” opinion. The Fourth Circuit just handed down a solid example in Burgess v. Goldstein.
Writing for the panel, Judge Quattlebaum leads off with a grabby TSORDC intro:
The facts underlying this appeal are dramatic and emotional. They
Join me for a moment in considering Myers v. Commonwealth. Myers is a recent SCOVA opinion reversing a conviction for carrying a concealed weapon in a zippered backpack on the floor of the passenger seat of his car. The relevant statute, Code § 18.2-308, generally bars carrying a concealed weapon but carves out several exceptions.
The