The United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia recently upheld a verdict on behalf of a drone enthusiast that found that the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) rule requiring that individual recreational users of drones register the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and pay a $5 fee.  The registration was good for 3 […]

In the Southern District of West Virginia, Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiary, Ethicon, Inc., were sued for defective design and failure to warn for their transvaginal mesh TVT-O, in addition to a loss of consortium claim. This specific case, Huskey v. Ethicon, Inc., involved the product Tension-Free Vaginal Tape-Obturator (“TVT-O”), which was implanted in […]

Recently, in Ebenezer Manu v. GEICO Casualty Company, the Supreme Court of Virginia clarified the issue of when an insurance provider has a duty to offer a good faith settlement to its insured when the accident was the fault of an uninsured motorist (UM).   Manu was a passenger in a motor vehicle accident caused by […]

On March 27, 2015, Jalal Haidar brought suit in federal court, alleging that he had been injured by a dangerous condition in a hotel.  According to Haidar, he sat motionless on a hotel toilet for approximately fifteen seconds when, without making any contact with the toilet tank, the tank lid suddenly fell.  The lid broke […]

Recently, the Virginia Supreme Court issued an opinion in the case of Elliott, Administrator of the Estate of Smith v. Carter.  The opinion was authored by Justice Goodwyn and flowed from an appeal of a case that was originally dealt with in the Circuit Court for Richmond County. The case came out of the tragic […]

On September 19, 2016, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) issued a Policy regarding automated vehicles.  NHTSA issued the Policy for the purpose of providing guidance to the states, manufacturers, and the public at large over how best to address the variety of challenges posed by the continued progress of automated vehicle technology.  These […]

On October 21, 2016, millions of internet users across the United States were prevented from accessing a number of popular websites, including Amazon, Netflix, Spotify and Twitter.  The reason?  A hacker had previously released the source code for Mirai malware on the dark web, a vast and anonymous network for illegal activity.  Mirai is designed […]

Virginia’s “ever-evolving discovery rules”[1] necessarily afford counsel wide latitude within which to maneuver in undertaking their duty to zealously advocate. The rules, however, also furnish aggrieved parties with effective means to combat oppressive discovery practices initiated by attorneys who seek to gain an unfair advantage and those who are merely dilatory in undertaking discovery. In […]

In Travelers Indem. Co. of Am. v. Portal Healthcare Solutions, L.L.C., 2016 U.S. App. Lexis 6554, decided on April 11, 2016, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit found that a commercial general liability insurer has the duty to defend its insured against a cybersecurity claim. The Underlying Suit On April 18, […]

Written by Chris Jones and David Boyce “Customer data is often a liability rather than an asset” observed Johns Hopkins cryptographer Matthew Green in a recent tweet. A liability indeed, not only for the corporate victim of a breach, but also for an ever expanding list of potential third party defendants. The collection and retention […]