Blog

Most people don't understand what this concept is all about. Spoliation of evidence is when a party to a lawsuit destroys evidence to help their case such as when a department store throws away the torn rug that the plaintiff tripped on or in a divorce case the wealthy husband destroy's his financial records to deprive the wife of the evidence of his wealth. This is always a problem. The Supreme Court of Virginia has made it in all the more difficult to get this in evidence since they has recently ruled that the party must prove evidence that the wrong doing party intentionally lost or destroyed the evidence to prevent its use at trial. This would be almost impossible to prove. That is why your attorney must utilize an investigator to gather up as much evidence as possible to help your case. ALWAYS BE PREPARED .

A Norfolk Circuit Court recently granted custody to a father of a minor child over the maternal grandmother. The facts are hard to believe. The child had very few visits with the natural father who had recently been incarcerated in prison for three years. The Guardian Ad Litem had recommended the grandmother as the sole custodian of the minor child.The Judge refused the "best interest of the minor child standard" and granted custody to the ex con father since the Court felt that it would somehow deprive him of his 14th Amendment rights. The Court felt that the grandmother had the burden to prove that the minor child would be hurt by the father even though there was evidence that the father lived in a one bedroom dump with his new wife and their two children and that the maternal grandmother had a spacious home which had been the minor child's only home since birth. There must have been some other facts concerning the natural mother who was residing with the grandmother. This proves one thing: never take anything for granted in a custody case.

A pre nuptial agreement is to protect your property which you own prior to the marriage or it can be used to protect property which you intend to acquire after you are married or it can be used to limit your exposure to spousal support after you are married. In drafting these agreements you and your attorney must be aware of the pitfalls which frequently occur if you fail to KEEP YOUR PROPERTY SEPARATE' after you are married. The Court in Virginia can take away your property under Section 20-107.3 (e) if you don't preserve its separate identity or have a property drafted pre nup which protects your property. 20-107.3 (e) states: When marital property and separate property are commingled into newly acquired property resulting in THE LOSS OF IDENTITY of the contributing properties, the commingled property shall be deemed TRANSMUTED to marital property. ..This is a result you want to avoid. I have drafted numerous pre nuptial agreements to avoid this specific problem.

Recently a Virginia Court of Appeals denied the Grandparents custody of their grandchildren on the basis that the grandparents were not fully aware of the special needs of the children and failed to regularly visit them when they were in foster care. The Court referred to them as "psychological strangers" to the children. The grandparents should have formed a battle plan to deal with these issues. It is not enough to have love and good intentions.

Recently there was a case in Virginia where a self employed business man refused to provide all his financial information to his wife's attorney. The trial court ordered the husband to pay a high amount of money to the wife and based its holding on the wife's financial expert and hit the husband with all her expert fees and all her legal fees. The Virginia Court of Appeals upheld the trial Court.. Lesson to be learned if you are in Court you have to follow the rules and disclose everything or something terrible can happen.

Recently there was a case where two men were taking down a chimney and it fell on the plaintiff crushing his hand. Fortunately the Plaintiff's attorney hired an expert in demolition work who would have testified that the defendant did not use the proper technique in attempting to take down the chimney. In this case this case the defendant hit it in the middle with a hammer causing it to fall on the plaintiff. In every personal injury case it is essential to be prepared with experts when necessary. We do this in every case to protect our clients.

For the first time in Virginia the Supreme Court of Virginia has ruled that if parties enter into a separation agreement and the recipient party who is receiving spousal support lives with a person in a relationship analogous to a man and wife relationship, then even though the wife is with a woman the Court held that it is the same as if she was in a relationship with a man and held that according her support must be cut off.

Recently two Virginia cases prohibited a mother from leaving the State with her children. In the first case the mother had secured a good job in California thinking that it would also be good for her children since they could attend the Catholic Montessori school where the mother had been offered a great job. The Virginia Court of Appeals sustained the trial Court's ruling preventing the mother from moving with the children, stating that just because she got a great job is not the test in Virginia. The court stated that since the children would be prevented from seeing their father with whom they had a close relationship it would not be in their best interest. In the second case the mother wanted to move with the children to Ohio since her husband had suffered a traumatic brain injury and could not support the children. The Court of Appeals reversed the trial Court and ordered the mother back until she could formulate a detailed Court Ordered visitation schedule for the father. In both cases the Courts in determining what is in the children's "BEST INTEREST' relied on the absence of meaningful contact with the parent who is being left behind. Needless to say it would have been better to have worked out a prearranged plan with the father before just leaving.

According to the Supreme Court of Virginia very important. Even though the parties were married for over 20 years and the wife had not worked since 1995 and the Husband was earning over $850,000.00 per year the Court denied the wife spousal support since she had had multiple affairs during the marriage. The test in Virginia is if a denial of support would constitute a manifest injustice to the wife seeking support even though she had committed adultery. In this case the Court felt it would not ! Lesson to be learned if you make unwise decisions during the marriage, they can come back to cause you unfortunate consequences.