Litigation

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Recent news out of New Jersey announces that the state’s appellate court overturned a lower court’s entry of a foreclosure judgment in favor of Deutsche Bank. Apparently, Deustche Bank attempted to foreclose on a borrower without being able to prove that it had possession of the original promissory note at the time that it brought its foreclosure action. As a result of the bank’s oversight, the appellate court ruled that the bank will have to restart the entire foreclosure process from scratch:Continue Reading Borrower Wins Skirmish, But May Lose the Foreclosure War

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals this past week became the highest court in the nation to draw a clear line establishing what school districts are legally permitted to do to control student expression on the Internet.  The Court with jurisdiction over the U.S. Virgin Islands sided with public school students stating that they cannot be punished for off-campus speech that fails to cause a substantial disruption to in-school activities,.

In the majority opinions for Layshcock v. Hermitage School District and J.S. v. Blue Mountain School District — two simultaneous opinions filed by the entire Third Circuit in Pennsylvania — the judges held that administrators are limited in their ability to restrict student speech that occurs outside of school.Continue Reading Third Circuit Sides with Students Right to Online Speech

Many tourists and local Virgin Islanders have enjoyed a Painkiller cocktail over the years, particulary visitors to the Soggy Dollar Bar on Jost Van Dyke, where the tropical concoction is made with the U.S. Virgin Islands’ Cruzan Rum.   

A New York Bar known as the Painkiller, thought to capitalize on the popularity of the drink when it opened on the Lower East Side of Manhattan over a year ago. But the bar’s legal reign as Painkiller has come to a painful end. Due to a federal law suit brought by Pusser’s Rum Ltd., the bar will now have to go under the moniker PKNY.

Pusser’s has also demanded that Painkiller turn over its website address and stop selling the rum cocktail know as Painkiller (which, according to Pusser’s, has to be made with their rum).
 Continue Reading Pusser’s VI Rum Wins Trademark Battle on “Painkiller”

A federal judge has dismissed the majority of the Virgin Islands Government Employees Retirement System’s (GERS) class-action complaint alleging J.P. Morgan and three related entities violated federal securities laws by making misleading statements in securities-offering documents concerning the quality of underlying mortgages.

Judge John G. Koeltl of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York said GERS lacked standing to sue with respect to most of the securities because they had not bought them.Continue Reading Judge Kicks Out GERS Suit Against JPMorgan Chase

One of the least-appreciated characteristics of legal work is that it is constantly changing. The rock-solid precedent that forms the foundation of an attorney’s finest argument can melt into air with the stroke of an appellate court’s pen. Less dramatically, courts constantly refine their precedent by issuing new opinions that take a new look at well-settled issues. And sometimes, the law simply outgrows the judicial box in which it is placed.

Continue Reading The End of Three-Days’ Grace?

Lisa is part of our litigation department and has been with the firm—and back on island—for just over a year. She returned to St. Thomas from Miami where she attended the University of Miami School of Law, graduating with honors. While she was in law school, Lisa was on the Dean’s List, a law review editor, and a member of the Moot Court Board. After four and half years of practicing in Miami, Lisa decided to return to St. Thomas, where she grew up, to be closer to her parents.
After Lisa graduated from law school, she began practicing law in Miami with a boutique litigation firm handling cases in both state and federal court which primarily involved employment discrimination, insurance coverage, misuse of intellectual property, premises liability and breach of commercial contracts and leases. Lisa then moved to a large national firm and continued to work on insurance coverage and breach of contract cases, including class actions, and also began to handle some real property and securities litigation.
 Continue Reading Lisa Michelle Komives Notable Cases

Forcible Entry and Detainer (“FED”) actions are governed by title 28, sections 751 through 794 of the Virgin Islands Code. Virgin Islands Port Authority v. Joseph, 2008 WL 2329281 (V.I.,2008). These sections provide for summary adjudication of a limited class of simple eviction proceedings. As described by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in C.M.L., Inc. v. Dunagan:
The Virgin Islands Code provides an action for forcible entry and detainer as a peaceful alternative to the often violent consequences of property owners exercising their right of self-help. Suarez v. Christian, 19 V.I. 1586 (D.V.I.1981). In exchange for revoking their right of repossession by force, the statute provides a simple summary proceeding, with time requirements substantially shorter than those provided in ordinary civil actions and with the issues sharply restricted. In such a summary proceeding, a property owner under certain specified circumstances, can quickly receive a judicial declaration of his right of occupancy and an order directing the marshal to remove the defendant and restore possession to the property owner. Where a tenant is retaining possession by force, relief is available in a summary FED proceeding only if there “is an undisputed oral or written lease agreement, and rent is due and owing thereon; or [t]here is an undisputed oral or written lease which has expired.” Conversely, “a FED cause of action will not lie where [t]itle to the premises is in question; or [w]here there is proved to the Court to exist a bona fide question of the existence of a lease at law or in equity, which has not yet expired.” Inter Car Corp. v. Discount Car Rental, 21 V.I. 157, 159 (Terr.Ct.1984).

Id. (citing, C.M.L., Inc. v. Dunagan, 904 F.2d 189, 190-91 (3d Cir.1990)) (paragraph indention omitted).
 Continue Reading Eviction: A Peaceful Alternative to Self-Help

The Local Rules of Civil Procedure for the District Court of the Virgin Islands require that litigants exclude or redact "personal data identifiers from all documents filed with the Court, including exhibits[.]" LRCi 5.4(l)(1). The list of personal data identifiers to be redacted includes "financial account numbers." LRCi 5.4(l)(1)(D). The Rule is silent on whether redaction is necessary for information that has already been made public.Continue Reading Does Redacting Public Documents Make Sense?

On December 1, 2010, the new amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure went into effect. One recipient of the Advisory Committee’s ministrations was Rule 56, which received its most thorough overhaul since the rule was first drafted in 1938.Continue Reading The Short, Happy Life of the 21-Day Period for Responding to Motions for Summary Judgment