The case involved the Jared and Donna Murayama 1997 Trust suing NISC Holdings, LLC, Omen LLC, DC Capital Partners, and Thomas Campbell for damages, alleging that fraudulent misrepresentations and omissions by the defendants about the value of NISC stock induced the Trust to sell its shares back to NISC for far below fair market value under a 2009 settlement agreement. The circuit court sustained the defendants' demurrer, ruling that the Trust's own allegations and the settlement agreement established a lack of reasonable reliance on the alleged fraud as a matter of law. The Supreme Court of Virginia affirmed that judgment, holding that the adversarial context leading to the settlement and specific provisions in the agreement precluded reasonable reliance on representations about the stock's value or potential sales. The Court also upheld the suspension of discovery pending the demurrer ruling, finding no abuse of discretion. The Trust's claims were dismissed without further proceedings.
The case was a products liability action brought by Steven Funkhouser against Ford Motor Company after his three-year-old daughter died from burns sustained in an electrical fire that started in the dashboard of the family's parked 2001 Ford Windstar minivan with the key off. Funkhouser claimed Ford negligently failed to warn of the risk of such key-off dash fires and sought to introduce evidence of seven prior Windstar fires known to Ford as proof of notice. The Supreme Court of Virginia held that the trial court misapplied Virginia's similar-occurrence doctrine by excluding four of the prior fires, which shared substantially similar circumstances and causes, but correctly excluded the other three as insufficiently similar, so expert witnesses could not rely on those three during direct testimony.
The case involved Professional Building Maintenance Corporation challenging the School Board of Spotsylvania County's award of a custodial services contract under a "Best Value" Invitation for Bid that considered factors beyond price, alleging violations of the Virginia Public Procurement Act including failure to award to the lowest responsive and responsible bidder, consideration of unstated criteria, and arbitrary or capricious decision-making. The circuit court sustained the School Board's demurrer, finding the best value method permissible and the allegations insufficient. The Supreme Court of Virginia reversed, holding that the amended complaint adequately stated claims that the School Board did not comply with statutory requirements for best value solicitations and that its process was arbitrary or capricious.
The case involved a committee of petitioners formed under the City of Hampton Charter to seek a referendum repealing a zoning ordinance that permitted a residential development by POH 2010 LLC on Buckroe Beach property. After the city council repealed the ordinance in response to the petition, the committee filed a declaratory judgment action seeking to block the development as unlawful under existing zoning rules. The circuit court dismissed the complaint, and the Supreme Court of Virginia affirmed the dismissal. The court held that the committee lacked standing because the city charter's referendum provisions granted the committee authority only to pursue repeal of the ordinance, and that authority ended once the repeal occurred, leaving no justiciable interest for further litigation.
The case involved Montgomery County challenging an agreement under which the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation granted funds from the Rail Enhancement Fund to Norfolk Southern Railway to build an intermodal freight terminal, claiming the authorizing statute and agreement violated the internal improvements and credit clauses of Article X, Section 10 of the Virginia Constitution. The circuit court granted summary judgment to the state defendants and Norfolk Southern, and the Supreme Court of Virginia affirmed. The Court held that the funding did not violate the internal improvements clause because the project served the public purpose of reducing highway congestion by shifting truck traffic to rail, falling within the exception for public roads. It further held that the credit clause was not implicated because the transaction involved only a grant of funds with no extension of credit, loan guarantee, or borrower-lender relationship between the Commonwealth and the railroad.