• King Lear by William Shakespeare (No Fear Shakespeare edition). Bear with me here. For school, Jack was assigned to read the No Fear Shakespeare edition of Julius Caesar. Have you seen these books? Each page has the text of the original play on one page, with a modern English translation on the facing page.

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Join me for a moment in considering Myers v. Commonwealth. Myers is a recent SCOVA opinion reversing a conviction for carrying a concealed weapon in a zippered backpack on the floor of the passenger seat of his car. The relevant statute, Code § 18.2-308, generally bars carrying a concealed weapon but carves out several exceptions.

The exception relevant here, subsection C(8), provides that the statute does not apply to “[a]ny person who may lawfully possess a firearm and is carrying a handgun while in a personal, private motor vehicle or vessel and such handgun is secured in a container or compartment in the vehicle or vessel.”

So the question presented in Myers was whether a handgun in a zippered backpack was “secured.”
Continue Reading Justice Kelsey’s Dictionaries

1. Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac.  “Kerouac” is a cool name, I guess. It has almost all the vowels. Why is this book supposed to be good?
2. Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges by Antonin Scalia and Bryan A. Garner. I read this every year with our federal litigation class. It’s my favorite book

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Last week, the Supreme Court of Virginia answered one of the great open questions in Virginia tort law when it clarified the availability of attorney’s fees under Prospect Development Co. v. Bershader, 258 Va. 75, 92 (1999).

A little background: Virginia follows the American Rule, which provides that without a statute or contract to the contrary, the prevailing party generally cannot recover attorney’s fees from the losing party. Historically, Virginia has recognized some exceptions, like false-imprisonment cases or situations “where a breach of contract has forced the plaintiff to maintain or defend a suit with a third person.” In 1999, the Supreme Court of Virginia added to this list with Bershader, holding that “in a fraud suit, a chancellor, in the exercise of his discretion, may award attorney’s fees to a defrauded party. When deciding whether to award attorney’s fees, the chancellor must consider the circumstances surrounding the fraudulent acts and the nature of the relief granted to the defrauded party.” Bershader‘s facts were pretty bad, as the chancellor found that the defendants had “engaged in callous, deliberate, deceitful acts that the chancellor described as a pattern of misconduct” that misled the plaintiffs and others. The chancellor felt that if he did not award attorney’s fees, the plaintiffs would have won a hollow victory.

That’s all fine as far as it goes, but it left open at least two questions: (1) Are attorney’s fees available only in equity, and (2) are they available only when the defendant has engaged in egregious misconduct?
Continue Reading SCOVA Clarifies Availability of Attorney’s Fees Under Prospect Development Co. v. Bershader

As I’m working my way through my Good Will Hunting library-card master’s program,* I had the chance to revisit Crito. This is a great dialogue! It’s only about 15 pages long. Socrates is in prison awaiting execution. His friend Crito shows up and tries to talk him into escaping into exile. Socrates is having none of it.

And the leads to this amazing exchange:
Continue Reading Crito: Persuade the Laws or Obey Them

I’m still trying to keep myself honest. For the second month in a row, we get swordfighting Lesbians (although they were way funnier in Gideon than Thucydides):

• The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Pelopennesian War by Thucydides. This is the text of Thucydides’s classic history, with tons of explanatory extras–maps, cross-references, explanations, timelines,

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The Supreme Court of Virginia’s argument schedule for next week is up. Here are a few of the cases that caught our eye and why:

• NC Financial Solutions of Utah, LLC v. Commonwealth: A consumer-finance case raising Federal Arbitration Act and Virginia Consumer Protection Act issues. Strong judge (Judge Ortiz from Fairfax) and a

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After revisiting the Tail End, I realized that there’s only one way to keep me honest about how I’m spending my limited reading time: transparency. So I’m going to start keeping a public list of what I’m reading. As an added benefit, every time I stumble across something good I can let you all know.

With that background, here’s last month’s list:
Continue Reading What I’m Reading