Fred H. Caplan

In Serge v. Matney, citizens and taxpayers of McDowell County petitioned for the removal of two county commissioners, Chester Matney and Thomas R. Lawson, alleging official misconduct, malfeasance in office, and neglect of duty after their recent election. The trial court removed both officials upon finding they had voted for county budgets that included salary increases for their wives, who were county employees, in violation of W.Va. Code § 61-10-15, an anti-nepotism statute barring public officers from pecuniary interests in matters over which they have influence or control. The Supreme Court of Appeals affirmed, concluding that the undisputed votes on the budgets constituted misconduct warranting removal under the statute and precedent in Hunt v. Allen, making it unnecessary to address additional charges.

criminal lawelections

Grace Karnell, as administratrix of her father's estate, sued the owners of the McClain Building after attempting to sell Gregg’s Restaurant to the Renforths under an agreement conditioned on the owners granting the buyers a ten-year lease, which was never executed; the Renforths stopped payments, and Karnell alleged breach of contract, tortious interference, negligent breach, and fraud. The trial court granted summary judgment for the defendants, viewing the complaint as alleging only tortious interference with no genuine factual dispute. The West Virginia Supreme Court reversed and remanded, holding that the record presented complex factual issues involving motive and intent—such as whether the owners agreed to or fraudulently promised the lease, intended only a month-to-month arrangement, or failed to negotiate—that could not be resolved on summary judgment without further development of the evidence.

business & regulatorypropertytorts & liabilityprocedure

In State v. Romine, the defendant was convicted by a jury in Wood County Circuit Court of burglary and rape and sentenced to one to fifteen years and twenty years in prison. On appeal, the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia reversed the convictions and remanded the case for a new trial. The main error identified was the state's jury instruction on the penalty for rape, which incorrectly stated that the defendant could receive the death penalty or life imprisonment without parole and misdescribed the effect of a mercy recommendation, even though the death penalty had been repealed in 1965 and the applicable penalties were different. The court reasoned that an erroneous instruction on the law is presumed prejudicial and could have affected the jury's decision, requiring reversal. It also noted that certain exhibits unrelated to the charged crimes were improperly admitted into evidence.

criminal lawprocedure

In Flowers v. City of Morgantown, property owners sued the City after it constructed an elevated concrete walkway ramp as part of a parking facility adjacent to their commercial building, claiming interference with their special property rights of access, light, air, and view from abutting public streets and seeking an order requiring condemnation proceedings with just compensation. The trial court dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim, relying on precedent that such rights are subject to reasonable public regulation without compensation. The West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals reversed, holding that under Article III, Section 9 of the state constitution, these easements are protected property rights that cannot be taken or damaged for public use without just compensation, that the owners could potentially prove facts showing substantial interference entitling them to relief, and that the case should proceed on the merits.

propertyprocedure

In State v. Harris, Mildred Harris was convicted by a jury in Mercer County Circuit Court of unlawfully delivering marijuana to a juvenile and sentenced to one to five years in prison. The prosecution's case relied on the juvenile's testimony, while the defense presented multiple witnesses; during cross-examination of those witnesses, the State repeatedly referenced an unrelated discovery of eight and a half pounds of marijuana at Harris's home several months earlier. The West Virginia Supreme Court held that this evidence of a collateral offense was inadmissible under the rule from State v. Thomas, as it had no legal connection to the charged delivery and improperly suggested the defendant's propensity to commit crimes. The court reversed the conviction and remanded for a new trial, finding the error required reversal because it compelled the defendant to address uncharged conduct and diverted the jury.

criminal lawprocedure

This case is an appeal from the Circuit Court of Wayne County's denial of habeas corpus relief to Joseph Carrico, who was convicted by jury in 1971 of forcible rape under W. Va. Code 61-2-15 and sentenced to ten to twenty years after the jury recommended mercy. Carrico petitioned in 1977 alleging ineffective assistance of counsel—specifically failures in investigation, witness presentation, and post-trial representation—and denial of a fair trial, but the court affirmed the denial after applying the standard from State v. Thomas that requires proof by a preponderance of evidence that counsel lacked the normal skill of reasonably knowledgeable criminal attorneys and that any errors were not harmless. The court further held that Carrico voluntarily waived his appeal rights in exchange for dismissal of other charges and that claims about trial errors such as continuances or evidence admission were not proper subjects for habeas corpus.

criminal lawprocedurecivil rights

This case involved a legal malpractice claim by Paul Harrison against attorney Carroll Casto. Harrison alleged that Casto negligently failed to timely sue Harrison's prior lawyer, Don Kingery, for not filing a personal injury suit against Piedmont Airlines, causing the claim to be barred by the two-year tort statute of limitations. Casto moved to dismiss, arguing that the claim against Kingery remained viable as a contract action subject to a five- or ten-year limitations period under West Virginia Code § 55-2-6. The circuit court granted the motion and dismissed the complaint, and the West Virginia Supreme Court affirmed, holding that a malpractice action may sound in either tort or contract and that the complaint should be construed as a contract claim to avoid the shorter limitations bar, meaning Harrison suffered no actionable harm from Casto's inaction.

proceduretorts & liability

In State v. Rissler, the defendant was convicted by a jury of breaking and entering a store and sentenced to one to ten years in prison after being apprehended near the scene of a reported fire. The appeal centered on the trial court's admission of the defendant's oral and written statements to police, which he argued were obtained without a knowing and intelligent waiver of his Miranda rights to remain silent and to counsel, citing inconsistencies in testimony about whether he invoked those rights. The court reviewed Miranda v. Arizona and North Carolina v. Butler, concluding that the evidence did not support a valid waiver and that the statements should have been suppressed. It also addressed other claims regarding chain of custody for physical evidence and cross-examination techniques but found reversible error only in the admission of the statements. The West Virginia Supreme Court reversed the conviction and remanded for a new trial.

criminal lawprocedure

This case involved a wrongful death action filed by the administrator of Diana Huggins' estate against a hospital board and physicians, claiming negligence caused her death days after childbirth in 1974. The plaintiff filed the complaint on the final day of the two-year statutory limitations period, but the clerk did not issue summonses until six days later following the attorney's instructions to hold the papers. The trial court dismissed the suit with prejudice for failure to commence the action within the required time, and the Supreme Court of Appeals affirmed. The court applied prior precedent defining commencement as requiring issuance of process under the clerk's authority, placed responsibility for timely institution on the plaintiff, and declined to alter that rule for this pre-amendment case even though filing occurred on time.

proceduretorts & liability

The case involved David Lee Grimm, who was convicted of first-degree murder after shooting and killing two men and wounding others outside a bar in 1969, with the defense relying solely on insanity stemming from his Vietnam War service. After an initial conviction was affirmed and a habeas corpus petition led to a retrial with the same result, Grimm appealed on multiple grounds including errors in jury instructions on the burden of proof for insanity, prosecutorial discovery practices, and the admission of undisclosed evidence. The court determined that the prosecution's failure to disclose a booking report—used to rebut the insanity defense by showing the defendant's coherence shortly after arrest—prejudiced the preparation of his case and expert witnesses, constituting reversible error. Other claimed errors, such as improper jury instructions on insanity and issues with prior testimony, were found to lack merit. The judgment was reversed and the case remanded for a new trial.

criminal lawprocedure

This case involved a bank that lent money secured by a truck and later repossessed the vehicle after a default. The bank held a public sale where its agent bid the full remaining balance on the note, then later sold the truck privately for less than that amount and sued the borrowers for the alleged deficiency. The trial court entered judgment for the bank, but the West Virginia Supreme Court reversed, holding that the bank's successful bid at the public sale for the entire debt amount constituted a disposition of the collateral that satisfied the obligation under the Uniform Commercial Code. Because the debt was fully paid by the bid proceeds, no deficiency existed and the bank had no cause of action against the borrowers. The court remanded with directions to enter judgment for the defendants.

business & regulatoryproperty

The case involved Walter Alphonzo Foddrell's 1979 conviction in McDowell County for armed robbery based on a 1973 incident at a Pocahontas Fuel Company store, where two eyewitnesses identified him after he was arrested in Michigan in 1978, refused to waive extradition, and was returned to West Virginia for trial. On appeal, Foddrell challenged the denial of grand jury minutes, the in-court identification from a single photograph shown years later, alleged improper judicial comments on evidence, claims of ineffective counsel, and a speedy trial violation under the Three Term Rule due to the multi-year delay after indictment. The court found no grand jury records existed, the identification was reliable under the totality of circumstances per State v. Casdorph and Neil v. Biggers, no reversible errors in counsel performance or comments, and other issues meritless. It remanded solely for a hearing applying Barker v. Wingo factors to determine if the State used due diligence in locating Foddrell, noting that if diligence was lacking he should be discharged but otherwise the conviction and sentence would stand.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involved Lonnie Edward Butcher's appeal of his voluntary manslaughter conviction and one-to-five-year sentence after a jury trial arising from a fatal shooting during an altercation on his property, where he claimed self-defense and the prosecution presented conflicting evidence about whether the victim had dropped his knife. The court addressed challenges to the competency of two child witnesses (ages seven and thirteen), a jury instruction that presumed second-degree murder and malice from use of a deadly weapon, the refusal of certain defense instructions, and the giving of allegedly repetitious state instructions. It affirmed the conviction, ruling that the witnesses were competent based on their demonstrated intelligence and understanding, that the burden-shifting instruction constituted harmless constitutional error because the jury convicted of manslaughter rather than murder, and that the remaining instructions were neither misleading nor improperly duplicative. The decision applied precedents on witness competency and harmless error in criminal trials.

criminal lawprocedure

In Scott v. Mohn, the petitioner sought a writ of habeas corpus after pleading guilty to unarmed robbery, claiming that the indictment was void due to awkward phrasing that appeared to charge the victim with putting himself in fear and that his appointed counsel provided ineffective assistance. The court denied the requested relief. It held that the indictment sufficiently informed the petitioner of the charges, as it closely tracked the statutory form and was not fatally defective under precedent like State v. Furner. On the ineffective assistance claim, the court applied the standard from State v. Thomas, finding that while counsel's preparation was inadequate, the petitioner entered his plea voluntarily after being fully informed by the trial judge, suffered no prejudice, and thus was not denied effective representation.

criminal lawprocedurecivil rights

The case involved an at-will employee terminated shortly after filing a workers' compensation claim for an occupational disease allegedly caused by his job. He sued the employer in three counts alleging breach of an oral employment contract, tortious retaliatory discharge harming his reputation, and violation of a new 1978 statute barring discrimination against employees seeking such benefits. The trial court dismissed the complaint as untimely, and on certification the Supreme Court of Appeals affirmed, ruling that no contract action for retaliatory discharge exists under at-will employment, the tort claim was subject to and barred by the two-year statute of limitations, and the statute applied only prospectively.

labor & employmenttorts & liabilityprocedure

In State v. Stone, the appellant was convicted of larceny in Nicholas County Circuit Court based on evidence including tools seized during a search of his home. The West Virginia Supreme Court reversed the conviction and ordered a new trial, holding that the first search warrant was invalid because the supporting affidavit lacked facts establishing probable cause or the reliability of the confidential informant, in violation of state and federal constitutional protections. The court further ruled that the second warrant, issued after police observed the tools in plain view during the illegal initial search, was tainted by that illegality, so the evidence obtained should have been suppressed. The court also addressed certain jury instructions on reasonable doubt and possession of stolen property but found they did not independently require reversal.

criminal lawprocedurecivil rights

The case involved a dispute over the validity of a 15-year lease for a garage that included a clause allowing only the lessee to terminate with 30 days' notice. The new owners of the property sought a declaratory judgment that the lease was void or created only a month-to-month tenancy due to lack of mutuality, while the lessee defended its validity and pursued a separate claim for damages to the premises. The trial court granted summary judgment to the owners, finding the fixed term and termination provisions inconsistent and unconscionable. The appellate court reversed and remanded, holding that a one-sided termination option does not by itself invalidate a lease with otherwise sufficient consideration or convert it to a tenancy at will, and that factual issues regarding the lessors' knowledge of the clause and any unfair conduct required a full trial rather than summary disposition.

propertyprocedure

The case involved Ruth Madeline Barkley appealing the denial of workers' compensation benefits for injuries sustained in a car accident on June 6, 1977, while traveling to a Reserve Life office as a soliciting agent. The court affirmed the Appeal Board's decision that Barkley was not entitled to compensation. It first applied the right-to-control test to determine employment status, finding that despite some independent contractor indicators, the company's oversight of agents' methods and performance established her as an employee. However, the court concluded the injury did not occur in the course of employment, as conflicting evidence showed she was not required by the employer to travel to the office that day, and injuries from ordinary highway use are generally not compensable unless duties specifically require it.

labor & employment

This case involved a challenge to a trustee's sale of real property securing a bank loan after the borrowers allegedly defaulted on payments. The circuit court granted summary judgment to the borrowers, voiding the sale due to issues including an improper default notice, an insufficient sale price, and a discrepancy between the advertised sale time (10 A.M. EDT) and the actual time held (10 A.M. EST) after the time change. On appeal, the Supreme Court of Appeals reversed, holding that summary judgment was improper because the pleadings raised genuine issues of material fact regarding default and property value that required further inquiry. The court reasoned that the time variance alone was not a material irregularity sufficient to invalidate the sale, as only one 10 A.M. time existed on the sale date and the notice's purpose of informing bidders was not undermined. The case was remanded for evidence on the substantive issues.

propertyprocedure

In Johnson v. Stevens, an indigent petitioner filed for divorce and sought a writ of mandamus to require the circuit judge either to allow alternative service of process or to have publication costs paid from public funds, after being denied relief under the poor person's affidavit statute. The court granted the writ and directed the state to bear the costs of service by publication in such cases. It reasoned that due process under the state and federal constitutions, along with equal protection and the open courts provision in Article III, Section 17 of the West Virginia Constitution, prohibit denying indigent litigants access to judicial dissolution of marriage solely because of inability to pay fees, following the rationale of Boddie v. Connecticut.

civil rightsfamily lawprocedure