Pretrial Practice and Civil Procedure Category Archives — Page 2 of 9 — The Virginia Business Litigation Blog Published by Virginia and Washington, D.C. Litigation & Appeals Attorney

October 29, 2019

Waiving the Statute of Limitations: Harder than You Might Think

As a general rule, legal rights may be waived by contractual agreement. The protection afforded by statutes of limitations may be waived like other rights, but only in very narrow circumstances, due to a Virginia law that few know about. The General Assembly decided to make it a bit more difficult to waive a statute of limitations than some other rights, and enacted Virginia Code § 8.01-232, which states in pertinent part as follows:

Whenever the failure to enforce a promise, written or unwritten, not to plead the statute of limitations would operate as a fraud on the promisee, the promisor shall be estopped to plead the statute. In all other cases, an unwritten promise not to plead the statute shall be void, and a written promise not to plead such statute shall be valid when (i) it is made to avoid or defer litigation pending settlement of any case, (ii) it is not made contemporaneously with any other contract, and (iii) it is made for an additional term not longer than the applicable limitations period.

Now that’s a pile of nearly incomprehensible legalese. One of the purposes of this blog, however, is to help people understand stuff like this, so let me try to decode it for you.

August 10, 2019

Tell the Jury About Your Plea in Bar Now, or Later

by Lee E. Berlik

If you get sued in Virginia on a claim your lawyer tells you is likely barred by the statute of limitations, you can raise the defense by way of a so-called “plea in bar.” A plea in bar is a pleading that presents a single set of facts that, if proven true, would bar the plaintiff’s claim from going forward. For example, if you can prove that the plaintiff’s claim arose earlier than the maximum amount of time permitted under the applicable statute of limitations, you may choose to file a plea in bar at the outset of the case to ask the court to dismiss it for that reason. Are you required to make this request at the outset of the case? No. If for some strategic reason you’d rather keep the defense in your back pocket to tell the jury about at trial, you can do that.

The issue came up recently in Ferguson Enterprises, Inc. v. F.H. Furr Plumbing, Heating and Air Conditioning, Inc., or as I like to refer to it, “Furr v. Ferguson.” Furr sued Ferguson in Prince William County on claims arising out of an alleged fraudulent-pricing scheme. Ferguson, a distributor of Trane-branded HVAC systems, had negotiated a pricing structure with Trane that allowed it to charge customers like Furr a discounted price and then receive a rebate or “claim back” from Trane. Furr entered into a contract with Ferguson back in 1995, but eventually came to believe that Ferguson was charging Furr a price above the discounted rate authorized by Trane. Furr sued in 2013 for fraud, unjust enrichment, breach of contract, and other claims.

May 18, 2019

When Preemption Leads to Unanticipated Removal

by Lee E. Berlik

When you sue someone, you sometimes have a choice between filing in state court or federal court, and courts will generally defer to your preferred forum. In appropriate circumstances, however, a defendant can remove the case from state court to federal court. Under the current removal statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1441, removal is permitted by the defendant in any civil action brought in a state court of which the district courts of the United States have original jurisdiction. For those wishing to keep their cases in state court, care must be taken to ensure there are no grounds for federal-court jurisdiction. Some cases get removed to federal court before the plaintiff ever sees it coming.

The preemption doctrine can lead to such a result. Under this doctrine, a defendant may remove a cause of action that otherwise appears to lack federal question jurisdiction by asserting that federal law preempts the state law claim. This is because, under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, when state law and federal law conflict, federal law displaces (or preempts) state law.

April 21, 2019

To Dispute Enforceability of Noncompete, File Plea in Bar

by Lee E. Berlik

When the Virginia Supreme Court decided Assurance Data v. Malyevac a few years ago, most employment lawyers speculated that although Virginia law no longer permitted most non-compete cases to be disposed of summarily on demurrer, a procedural mechanism known as the “plea in bar” could still be used by defendants intent on challenging the enforceability of their noncompete agreements. Assurance Data held that “restraints on competition are neither enforceable nor unenforceable in a factual vacuum” and that evidence is ordinarily required to perform the analysis. Unlike demurrers, pleas in bar allow for the presentation of evidence, so it would seem that the plea in bar would be an appropriate way to dispute a noncompete. A new decision from the Circuit Court of Fairfax County agrees with this approach.

August 31, 2018

Dismissals With Prejudice vs. Without Prejudice

by Lee E. Berlik

When a Virginia court dismisses a case, the dismissal order may state that the dismissal of the case is either “with prejudice” or “without prejudice.” In this context, prejudice has nothing to do with racism or discrimination. Rather, it’s simply an indication of whether the case is permanently ended, with no possibility of finding its way back onto the court’s docket, or merely removed from the docket in such a way as to permit its refiling upon the satisfaction of certain conditions. Sometimes it will be up to the judge to decide whether to dismiss a case with or without prejudice; other times (particularly when the defect in the case cannot be fixed), the law will dictate the form of dismissal.

The Virginia Supreme Court explained the distinction in Primov v. Serco, Inc., decided just a few days ago. There, the court noted that a dismissal of a suit “without prejudice” means that the court is not deciding the controversy on its merits, and that the whole subject of litigation will remain as much open to another suit as if no suit had ever been brought. (See Newberry v. Ruffin, 102 Va. 73, 76 (1903)). In other words, dismissing a case without prejudice terminates the action but does not prohibit its refiling.

January 5, 2018

How a Strategic Counterclaim Can Backfire

by Lee E. Berlik

Nobody likes to get sued. It can be an expensive and soul-draining proposition, even if you win. Under the so-called “American Rule,” litigants are responsible for paying their own legal fees, regardless of which party wins the case. Obviously, this system engenders some abuse, as crafty, litigious plaintiffs can file frivolous lawsuits knowing that–at the very least–they will cause the defendant to incur large sums of attorneys’ fees. As a defendant in American litigation, a victory at trial merely means you don’t have to pay the plaintiff any money. But you do you have to pay your own attorneys for their time and effort. So even a “win” is often viewed as a net loss in financial terms. One common way to turn the tables on plaintiffs is to file a counterclaim. Assuming the counterclaim itself isn’t completely groundless, it can put the parties on equal footing: if both parties have claims against the other, then both parties have something to lose beyond mere legal fees. Now, even the plaintiff can be liable for a money judgment.

If you file a counterclaim, however, you better mean it. The court may not allow you to withdraw it later if you decide your claims should have been brought as a separate action in a different jurisdiction. If the case has progressed to the point where trial is imminent, you may be forced to litigate the claim or lose it forever.

November 1, 2017

Determining Validity of Noncompete Requires Evidence

by Lee E. Berlik

Restrictive covenants in employment agreements (e.g., noncompete and nonsolicitation clauses) are enforceable in Virginia if they are (1) narrowly drawn to protect the employer’s legitimate business interests, (2) not unduly burdensome on the employee’s ability to earn a living, and (3) are not against public policy. There was once a time when litigation brought to enforce noncompete and nonsolicitation agreements would be routinely dismissed at the outset of a case based on a finding that one of these elements was lacking. For example, a noncompete provision restricting a former employee from taking a similar job with a nearby competitor for five years might have been quickly dismissed based on the judge’s quick determination that five years is simply too long.

This changed with the 2013 Virginia Supreme Court decision in Assurance Data, Inc. v. Malyevac. There, the court pointed out that every case is different, and held that an employer seeking to enforce a restrictive covenant must be given the opportunity to present evidence demonstrating reasonableness. Since this decision, some judges–like Fairfax County Circuit Court Judge John M. Tran–have opined that in appropriate cases, courts can still dismiss noncompete cases without an evidentiary hearing, such as when an employer fails to even proffer a legitimate business interest. Others hold that Assurance Data forecloses facial attacks on restrictive covenants. This appears to be the more common interpretation of the case.

February 6, 2017

Public Disclosure of Discovery

by Lee E. Berlik

If you look up “deposition” on YouTube, you’ll likely find over 200,000 videos to choose from. Many include graphics and commentary that the uploader added after the deposition was taken, usually with the aim of mocking the witness being deposed. The purpose of the discovery process is to require witnesses and corporations in possession of information potentially relevant to a case to divulge information to the requesting party for the purpose of assisting in the preparation of a litigated dispute for trial. Depositions are a specific form of discovery designed to allow litigants to obtain sworn testimony from witnesses in advance of the trial date and to get that testimony in a video format suitable for presenting to a jury. With the soaring popularity of video-sharing social-media sites, the temptation can be great to humiliate your opponent in litigation by posting embarrassing video depositions (or other discovery responses) on Facebook or YouTube, either during the pendency of the litigation or after it has ended. Is this permissible in Virginia?

There are authorities coming out on both sides of this question. On the one hand, “pretrial depositions and interrogatories are not public components of a civil trial.” (See Seattle Times Co. v. Rhinehart, 467 U.S. 20, 33 (1984)). Thus, while the public generally has a common law right of access to court orders and legal proceedings, information collected through discovery is not a matter of public record to which that right extends. In other words, regardless how entertaining it might be to watch a celebrity make a fool of himself at a deposition, it’s really nobody’s business outside of the confines of the court proceeding. On the other hand, dissemination of pretrial discovery materials by the receiving party is not automatically prohibited absent a protective order.

August 9, 2016

Fairfax Circuit Court Procedure for Motions Day

by Lee E. Berlik

Suppose you find yourself involved in litigation in Fairfax County, Virginia, and you want the court to take some kind of action. Perhaps you want the judge to order the plaintiff to attach a copy of the contract to the complaint. Maybe it’s a libel case and you want to ask to court to dismiss the case for failing to plead the requisite elements of defamation. Or maybe the statute of limitations has passed and you want the court to dismiss the case for that reason. If you want the court to do something, you need to file a motion. And the procedures for bringing that motion to the attention of the court differ from county to county.

This article deals with the local rules in Fairfax County only. (Technically, they’re not “rules,” but “guidelines.”) Procedures in neighboring jurisdictions like Loudoun County, Prince William County, and Alexandria differ slightly but share most of the basic framework. If there is sufficient interest among the subscribers to this blog, I may cover those jurisdictions in future posts. This is also not a tutorial about how to draft persuasive motions. Rather, it is intended as a guide to the procedural considerations in bringing your motion before the court. Of course, if you are an out-of-state attorney representing a client with a pending case in Fairfax County, your best best is to retain and work with local counsel.

July 14, 2016

Not All Contractual Interference Is Tortious Interference

by Lee E. Berlik

Legal claims are made up of elements. To sue somebody and win, you need to allege and eventually prove each element that makes up the legal theory on which you’re suing. And oftentimes, those elements have distinct legal meanings that differ from their dictionary definitions. Failure to pay close attention to the requirements of each separate element can result in dismissal of the case before it even gets started. Last month, a Virginia court summarily dismissed an IT consulting company’s claims for tortious interference for failing to allege the facts necessary to support such claims.

The case–Forsythe Global, LLC v. QStride, Inc.–was decided under Michigan law. Michigan, like Virginia, recognizes separate torts for tortious interference with contract, and tortious interference with prospective business relationships or expectancies. Under both the law of Michigan and the law of Virginia, tortious interference requires more than mere “involvement in the activities and concerns of other people when your involvement is not wanted.” (See Merriam-Webster’s definition of interference). There’s no law that requires people to mind their own business. To prevail in court, the interference must approach a specific threshold–meddling in other people’s affairs won’t satisfy the claim if the interference does not reach this level.