Once a plaintiff has introduced evidence to establish a “badge of fraud,” a prima facie case of fraudulent conveyance is established and the burden shifts to the defendant to establish that the transaction was not fraudulent. So held the Virginia Supreme Court, in reversing the Henrico County Circuit Court’s decision…
Toyota Motor Sales, Inc., will not be able to take advantage of a mandatory arbitration clause in an online agreement with a Los Angeles woman because the agreement was obtained by fraud and is therefore entirely void, a California state appeals court has held. Amber Duick was targeted by Toyota…
Virginia courts will not necessarily rule on the enforceability of a restrictive covenant in an employment agreement without first examining the facts. In a recent federal-court decision from Roanoke, Judge Wilson denied a defendant’s motion for judgment on the pleadings in a case involving an alleged assignment of patent rights…
Many contracts provide that in the event of litigation arising out of a breach, the prevailing party will be entitled to recover “reasonable” attorneys’ fees from the losing party. Some attorneys, however, hoping to obviate the need for a mini-trial regarding the reasonableness of the fees, draft contracts setting the…
In Virginia, non-compete agreements will be enforced if they are narrowly drawn to protect the employer’s business interests, if they are not unduly restrictive of the employee’s ability to earn a living, and if they are not against public policy. While noncompetes are often struck down as disfavored restraints on…
Several exercise machines manufactured by ICON Health & Fitness, Inc., which permit a person to play blackjack, poker, and other games while exercising, don’t infringe patents held by Fitness Gaming Corp. (FGC) for a device that combines an electronic game of chance and a piece of exercise equipment. This was…
Pincher’s Crab Shack, a restaurant chain with seven locations in Southwest Florida, is taking on fast-food giant Wendy’s in a trademark lawsuit. In a case filed in federal court on July 12, 2011, Pincher’s asserts that Wendy’s has stolen its trademarked slogan, “You Can’t Fake Fresh,” and used it in…
A U.S. district judge in Virginia has adopted a magistrate judge’s recommendation to deny a Minnesota man’s motion to dismiss a trademark complaint against him in a case that centered around an automobile service center franchise, and to enter a judgment against the service center he operated in an amount…
In a case that turns on a law firm’s ethical obligations to avoid conflicts of interest, a large D.C. law firm has once again been procedurally rebuffed in its effort to have a federal judge in the District of Columbia declare that it has not violated any ethics rules in…
Courts don’t often grant requests to “pierce the corporate veil” – in other words, to disregard the existence of a corporation and to hold a shareholder personally liable for the corporation’s debts – but in a recent Virginia case, a judge did just that, entering a personal judgment against a…