A rather surprising bill made early strides before the House this session. The House Courts of Justice Civil Subcommittee recommended approval of HB 465. The Bill as introduced was as follows: Jury verdict; excess damages; amendment of pleadings. Allows a court, in the event a jury returns a verdict for damages in excess of the amount requested, to amend the pleadings to conform them to the amount awarded and enter a judgment for such damages Such a bill would have dramatically changed the state of law in Virginia. Not only…
Read MoreRemora Shows Court on Consistent Path
In a recent decision by the Virginia Supreme Court, the Court continues to limit the assertion of claims for breach of fiduciary duty. The Court in Remora Investments, LLC v. Orr, 277 Va. 316, 673 S.E. 2d 845 (2009) held that managers have no fiduciary duty to members of an LLC; only to the LLC itself. This appears to be a consistent trend the Court has followed in legal malpractice cases beginning with O’Conner v. Bean, 263 Va. 176, 556 S.E. 2d 741 (2002) determining that an attorney malpractice action…
Read MoreAn Example of Administrative Exemption Error
A few posts below, we discussed employer’s periodic over-reliance on the overtime exemption for administrative employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act. As noted, among the four primary exemptions under that act, we have found that employers most frequently misapply this exemption. A recent federal appeals court decision highlights this point. In Whalen v. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that a loan underwriter at J. P. Morgan Chase was not exempt from overtime entitlement under the administrative exemption. J.P. Morgan…
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