Charles S. Russell

This case involved a claim for workers' compensation death benefits by the widow of Matthew Thorpe, who died after falling through a skylight while performing metal roofing work for a contractor. The central dispute concerned the calculation of Thorpe's average weekly wage under Virginia Code § 65.2-101, where the only evidence was a fixed-price contract for $5,000 (half to Thorpe) for a job with no set duration and no data on comparable wages in the trade. The deputy commissioner and Commission computed the wage based on the single transaction, and the Court of Appeals affirmed; the Supreme Court of Virginia likewise affirmed, holding that the statute's directive to divide earnings by weeks worked applies only when doing so yields fair and just results for both parties, which it would not here given the one-time project with no evidence of ongoing or similar employment.

labor & employmentprocedure

The case involved Jerry Lee Anderson, convicted in a bench trial of forcible fellatio against a 41-year-old victim in Pittsylvania County after an encounter at his home. The appeal centered on whether the trial court erred by admitting portions of the victim's prior consistent statements to a counselor and police to rehabilitate her credibility after impeachment by a prior inconsistent statement. The Supreme Court of Virginia assumed without deciding that some statements may have been overly repetitious and improperly admitted, but held any such error harmless because independent evidence—including the victim's prompt reports, her daughter's observations of her distress, visible bruises noted by a deputy, and the defendant's shifting accounts during recorded calls and interviews—bolstered her testimony. The court therefore affirmed the conviction, finding the defendant received a fair trial on the merits.

criminal lawprocedure

The case concerned whether evidence was sufficient to convict Russell Ernest Smith, Jr. of willfully and intentionally making a materially false statement on a federal firearm purchase form in violation of Virginia Code § 18.2-308.2:2(K). Smith had been indicted for a felony two days before he answered "no" on the form to the question of whether he was under indictment for a felony, leading to the cancellation of his attempted gun purchase and his arrest. The trial court convicted him after finding he "knew what was going on," and the Court of Appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court of Virginia reversed, holding that the statute requires proof of actual knowledge that the statement was false and that no such evidence existed here, as Smith testified he was unaware of the indictment and did not understand the term.

criminal lawguns

This case was about whether the Commonwealth of Virginia could be held liable under the Virginia Tort Claims Act for injuries a prisoner suffered due to alleged negligence by a county sheriff's deputies in failing to protect him from other inmates. The court decided that the Commonwealth was not liable and affirmed the dismissal of the case on sovereign immunity grounds. The core reasoning was that sheriffs and their deputies are constitutional officers independent of the Commonwealth government, so they are not 'employees' whose negligence would trigger the Act's limited waiver of immunity.

criminal lawtorts & liabilityprocedure

This case involved an employee of a general contractor injured on a construction site by the alleged negligence of an employee of an uninsured subcontractor. The injured worker, who had already received workers' compensation benefits from his employer, brought a common-law tort suit against the subcontractor and its employee. The circuit court denied the defendants' plea in bar asserting exclusivity under the Virginia Workers' Compensation Act, but the Supreme Court of Virginia reversed and dismissed the action. The court held that the defendants qualified as statutory co-employees because they were engaged in the same project that was part of the general contractor's trade, business, or occupation, and therefore they were protected by the Act's exclusivity provisions regardless of their own lack of insurance.

labor & employmenttorts & liability

The case involved a plaintiff who, after a 2004 car accident, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2005 without listing his personal injury claim as an asset, received a discharge, and then filed multiple lawsuits against the defendant starting in 2006. The Virginia Supreme Court held that the circuit court erred in denying the defendant's motion for summary judgment, reversing the judgment and dismissing the case. The court reasoned that under federal bankruptcy law the claim became part of the bankruptcy estate upon filing, so the plaintiff lacked standing to sue until the bankruptcy court later granted an exemption in 2009. Because Virginia law treats actions filed without standing as legal nullities that do not toll the statute of limitations, and the two-year personal injury limitations period expired in 2006, all the complaints were time-barred.

proceduretorts & liabilityfederal power