The Library

Paul Klockenbrink contributes to the “Virginia Hospitality Law Blog” and is a frequent lecturer on employment law issues. A recent decision by a federal appeals court has sent minor, if not significant, shockwaves into the restaurant and hospitality industries that use tip pooling as part of their employees’ income. Under Section 203(m) of the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”), restaurants and other hospitality industry employers are permitted to utilize a limited amount of employees’ tips as a credit against their minimum wage obligations by using tips as “wages.” This practice is known as taking a “tip credit.” An employer can pay […]

For many apartment dwellers, a deck or balcony is their version of a backyard — a place they can privately savor a sunny day or cool evening. Occupants and visitors alike should be able to enjoy a deck or balcony with confidence in its stability. Over the last twenty years, however, there has been a massive race to build structures which included decks and balconies. Unfortunately, many of those decks and balconies were not built to appropriate building codes or were negligently constructed using inferior products or inadequate nails/fasteners. In some cases, owners and managers of properties have failed to […]

What is due diligence? As an essential element of commercial transactions, due diligence is the process of investigating the target company or real estate prior to completion of the acquisition. For all forms of a business acquisition (or merger), the due diligence process will equip the buyer with additional knowledge, including but not limited to management, operation, financial perspective, structure, existing liabilities and contractual relationships, tax compliance, customer base, employees, and litigation or claims against the business. For real estate transactions, due diligence may include a review of the property’s title history, consideration of current and former uses and impacts […]

It sounds like the most simple and innocuous thing. Who could mess up the parties’ names on a contract? And, what’s the big deal if the name is not exactly right? Under Virginia law, it is a bigger issue than you might think. In particular, it is an issue that can rear its head when one or more of the parties is a corporation or limited liability company. Getting the name correct – that is, using the officially-registered corporate name – is necessary, and failure to do so can impact legal rights. For example, in Berglund Chevrolet, Inc. v. Thor […]

What was once a simple decision to dam up a creek or stream and create a pond or small lake for agricultural or recreational purposes is no longer a simple decision. Rather, it is one that could be very expensive, complicated, and very disappointing. The construction of dams is now a highly regulated activity in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Over the last several years, landowners have had to face the proposition of reversing impoundment activities and draining existing lakes and ponds because of a failure to properly comply with the applicable dam rules and regulations. When permitting requirements exist, it […]

Like the roads in our region affected by 2016’s Winter Storm Jonas, the avenue of compliance for federal contractors has just become a little more treacherous. The Department of Labor’s Final Rule affecting federal government contractors’ policies on pay transparency went into effect on January 11, 2016. [1] The Rule, which implements Executive Order 13665, which was signed by President Barack Obama back in April 2014, is the DOL’s effort to promote pay transparency by barring policies of certain federal contractors which previously prevented workers from discussing their wages. Now, covered federal contractors are prohibited from firing or otherwise disciplining employees […]

Some Advice for Business Owners with Commercial Insurance Policies Every business that owns or operates out of a brick and mortar location needs a commercial insurance policy for that building. This we can all agree on. But what happens when the insurance policy will pay out only after the policy holder replaces the destroyed property? What happens if the insurance company (surprise, surprise) decides it may not pay at all, based on policy exclusions? As a business owner, you can be left high and dry if you don’t have the capital to pay for the replacement up front. It is […]

How would you have handled the following personnel matter? A supervisor and HR director met with an employee to provide him with a first-level attendance counseling. The employee became quite angry and refused to sign the counseling document. He then told the supervisor that he was incompetent (and repeated this comment over and over). He stated (and restated) that management was a “bunch of liars” and complained about low pay for him and others. When management tried to discuss his concerns with him, he told them that he did not trust them and he continued his disparaging comments. The HR […]

When we say that an amendment to a pleading “relates back” to the filing of the original pleading, we are simply saying that we are going to pretend that the new allegations appeared in the original document, even though they didn’t. The reason for this concept, and indeed the only reason that anyone would care whether an amendment relates back, is the statute of limitations. If a party, almost always a plaintiff, seeks to amend his or her pleading before the statute of limitations runs, he or she doesn’t need anything to relate back. It is only when the original […]