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My grandmother made a great Sunday roast; in fact, her potatoes became a benchmark for the multigenerational cooks in my family - “Eh, they are good potatoes, but they’re just not ‘nanny potatoes.’” Great bragging rights. Or so I thought. Take a step back, sit down and read on about grandmother bragging rights. Jason Mackey, winner of several legal awards over the years, has a grandmother who sort of trumped his awards for all time. Meet the late great Frances… Read More

“Where, after a contract is made, a party's performance is made impracticable without his fault by the occurrence of an event the non-occurrence of which was a basic assumption on which the contract was made, his duty to render that performance is discharged, unless the language or the circumstances indicate the contrary.” Restatement (Second) of Contracts, § 261 (1981). In simpler times, law students around the country would know these words – the 1981 formulation of the “doctrine of impracticability”… Read More

As workers return to their places of employment, employers must be aware of the pitfalls surrounding mandating COVID-19 vaccines for those returning workers. Employers who adopt such a policy need to understand the obligations that the Americans with Disabilities Act (“the ADA”) imposes on employers. This article will discuss one such obligation: under the ADA, may an employer require a COVID-19 vaccination for all employees entering the workplace, even though it knows that some employees may not get a vaccine… Read More

When a problem gets bad enough that insurers and insureds begin to combine their resources to combat it, people take notice. That was the case on April 5, 2021, when the American Trucking Association (ATA), the American Property Casualty Insurance Association (APCIA), and the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud (CAIF) made headlines by announcing that they will coordinate their efforts and resources toward enacting legislation to tackle one of the trucking industry’s biggest problems – towing fraud. The scenario is all… Read More

If you like a good baseball movie (that coincidentally raises interesting legal issues), The Battered Bastards of Baseball is well worth watching. It is a 2014 documentary that tells the story of how Bing Russell created the only independent baseball team in America at that time in 1973. Bing Russell was a former ball player turned Hollywood actor (best known for playing Deputy Clem on “Bonanza”) and also incidentally Kurt Russell’s father. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battered_Bastards_of_Baseball. [Source: Library of Congress] Described as “one… Read More

On March 2, 2021, Governor Ralph Northam signed the Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act (“VCDPA”) into law, making Virginia the second state to pass comprehensive data privacy legislation. While this law does not take effect until January of 2023, let’s take a look at the basics of the act in order to prepare ourselves for the coming changes. Who is restricted by the VCDPA? The VCDPA applies to all entities that conduct business in the Commonwealth or those that produce… Read More

Predatory towing and excessive post-accident invoices are hot topics for many motor carriers in Virginia. This article will serve as a follow-up to Predatory Towing -Is There a Fix?, and will discuss recent efforts in Virginia to attempt to curb “predatory, aggressively overreaching, and illegal” towing practices, while also discussing potential solutions. The Virginia Trucking Association (VTA) is working toward a solution to the problems with non-consensual towing in the Commonwealth. In a recent telephone interview with VTA President Dale… Read More

I believe in big picture explanations. Understanding the broad picture helps understand why the details are important. It helps see where the puzzle pieces fit and why they are necessary. If a person does not understand why something is necessary, it is much easier to rebel against the directive. For instance, if you tell a child “because I said so” as the reason they should not do something, that does not create any incentive or understanding as to why they… Read More