Craig D. Bell* and Michael H. Brady**, Annual Survey of Virginia Law Taxation, 54 U. Rich. L. Rev. 133 (2019).
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This Article reviews significant recent developments in the laws affecting Virginia state and local taxation. Its Parts cover legislative activity, judicial decisions, and selected opinions and other pronouncements from the Virginia Department of Taxation (the “Tax Department”) and the Attorney General of Virginia over the past year.
Part I of this Article addresses state taxes. Part II covers local taxes, including real and tangible personal property taxes, license taxes, recordation taxes, and administrative local tax procedures.
The overall purpose of this Article is to provide Virginia tax and general practitioners with a concise overview of the recent developments in Virginia taxation that are most likely to impact their clients. However, it does not address many of the numerous minor, locality-specific or technical legislative changes to Title 58.1 of the Virginia Code, which covers taxation.
J. William Gray Jr.* & Katherine E. Ramsey**, Annual Survey of Virginia Law Wills, Trusts and Estates, 54 U. Rich. L. Rev. 183 (2019).
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The 2019 Virginia General Assembly did not enact any major new legislation, but it did pass several significant amendments. Among the most useful was an amendment to the Virginia Uniform Transfers to Minors Act which extended the maximum age for custodianships from twenty-one to twenty-five. The legislature also decided to cease imposing income taxes on estates and trusts whose sole connection to the Commonwealth is that they are being administered here. It responded to two recent court cases involving the required execution formalities for leases and the right to award attorneys’ fees in actions involving an agent’s breach of fiduciary duty under a power of attorney. Among other legislative actions, the General Assembly modernized the recordation tax exemption for certain deeds of distribution; dealt with issues affecting Virginia’s small estate, wrongful death, and property tax exemption statutes; made it easier for financial institutions to combat financial exploitation of the elderly; strengthened the enforcement of reporting requirements for guardians; and protected circuit court clerks who disclose probate tax return information to the commissioner of accounts or who destroy wills they have been holding for 100 years or more.
For its part, the Supreme Court of Virginia handed down six decisions addressing the presumption of undue influence, the attestation requirements and principles of construction applicable to wills, the legal effect of naming an estate or trust (rather than the fiduciary) as the sole party to a suit, the application of Virginia’s long-arm statute in an elder abuse case, and the legal requirements for execution of a lease with a term of five years or more.
Tyler C. Southall*, From Animal Control to Zoning: 2019 Local Government Law Update, 54 U. Rich. L. Rev. 133 (2019).
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The goal of this Article is to review significant recent developments in Virginia local government law. First, this Article discusses a number of Supreme Court of Virginia and Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals cases published between July 1, 2018 and July 1, 2019. These cases involve questions of the First Amendment and social media, the First Amendment and employment law, attorney-client privilege and Freedom of Information Act requests, vested rights issues in zoning ordinances, the powers of the Virginia State Corporation Commission, and public finance. Second, this Article addresses new laws from the 2019 General Assembly. It is impossible to cover every important case and every relevant statutory amendment, so this Article focuses on the most important and/or interesting new cases and new laws.
* County Attorney, Dinwiddie County, Virginia. J.D., 2009, University of Virginia School of Law; B.A., 2006, University of Virginia. Any views expressed by the author are his own and not necessarily the views of Dinwiddie County. The author is indebted to the format used by Andrew McRoberts and Steven Durbin in an excellent previous University of Richmond Law Review piece on local government law. Andrew R. McRoberts & Steven V. Durbin, Annual Survey of Virginia Law: Local Government Law, 47 U. Rich. L. Rev. 257 (2012). The author thanks the editors of the University of Richmond Law Review, who provided many helpful comments in the editing of this Article. Any errors are the author’s own.
Jeffrey R. Adams & Lucas I. Pangle, The Downfall of “Incumbent Protection”: Case Study and Implications, 54 U.R. L. Rev. 243 (2019).
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On January 9, 2019, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit struck down Virginia Code section 24.2-509—Virginia’s long-standing “Incumbent Protection Act” (or the “Act”). The Incumbent Protection Act was the only statute of its kind, and had endured criticism by grassroots commentators. Yet, the Incumbent Protection Act had long evaded scrutiny in the courtroom. Indeed, the Incumbent Protection Act’s courtroom history is labyrinthine, replete with interesting and significant commentaries on party rights, standing, and public policy preference for primaries. In fact, before its eventual demise, it had been implicated in several lawsuits bringing constitutional challenges to various Virginia election laws and had dodged one direct assault by defending on standing grounds.
By the time the challenge to the Incumbent Protection Act culminated with the Fourth Circuit’s January 9, 2019 decision, litigation to dismantle it had been ongoing for almost five years between two different suits. Indeed, the Incumbent Protection Act was felled not by one, but two swings.
This Article chronicles the course of the litigation that ultimately toppled the Incumbent Protection Act. Spanning two lawsuits and no fewer than seven opinions, the story of the litigation provides insight to practitioners who hope to navigate the interlocking and overlapping hierarchies of party plans, state laws, and constitutional rights. Following the summary and analysis of the litigation, this Article will assess the ramifications of the two Fourth Circuit opinions and will look ahead to issues likely of interest to future challengers to Virginia’s election laws.
Dr. Stephen Allred*, An Analysis of Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress Claims in the Virginia Workplace, 54 U.R. L. Rev. 283 (2019).
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This Article first traces the development of the tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress as applied to the workplace in the Commonwealth of Virginia in Part I, and offers some observations about the significant hurdles a plaintiff may face in trying to successfully hold an employer accountable for conduct that many in our society would deem unacceptable. After reviewing the evolution of the doctrine since it was first recognized in Virginia nearly fifty years ago in Part II, Part III returns to the incident described above involving Linda Bodewig and her employer, and offers an analysis of how her case would likely be decided in the Virginia courts today—and whether that decision would be the right one.
Joanna R. Steele, Comment, “In the Little World”: Breaking Virginia’s Foster-Care-to-Prison Pipeline Using Restorative Justice, 54 U.R. L. Rev. 313 (2019).
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Measuring a nation’s strength by the health of its economy or armed forces is easy. In those regards, the United States is one of the strongest nations on Earth. If we judge our country’s strength by how it cares for the 443,000 children in foster care,[2]however, the result is completely different. The United States has created a foster-care-to-prison pipeline that sweeps vulnerable children into the penal system at alarming rates.
This Comment proposes that integrating restorative justice conferencing into Virginia’s foster care system can help break its foster-care-to-prison pipeline. Part I details Virginia’s foster care system and the foster-care-to-prison pipeline. Part II reviews and explains how restorative conferencing in Glenmona, Northern Ireland’s equivalent foster care system correlates strongly with decreased incarceration of foster children. Part III outlines how Virginia can implement the same restorative conferencing in its foster care system and pioneer a program that could affect its foster-care-to-prison pipeline.
