Litigation

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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

One of the areas of practice for BoltNagi PC is commercial and residential mortgage foreclosure law.  Although the substantive law governing commercial and residential mortgage foreclosures is virtually identical, commercial borrowers have an important advantage over residential borrowers:  If a commercial borrower is facing foreclosure, it can seek out new investors or a “white knight” to get it out of trouble.  Residential borrowers don’t generally have that option.Continue Reading “White Knights” for Residential Mortgage Workouts

The St. Thomas law firm of BoltNagi PC is pleased to announce that Attorney Lisa Michelle Kömives has joined the firm as an Associate Attorney in the Litigation Practice Group. Her practice concentration is complex commercial litigation including insurance coverage. Prior to joining BoltNagi PC, Lisa was an Associate with Akerman Senterfitt in Miami, Florida where she specialized in insurance coverage class actions and breach of contract litigation.

Continue Reading St. Thomas Litigation Attorney Komives to Practice Law at BoltNagi

A recent decision by the United States Supreme Court has resolved a long-standing ambiguity in the statutory requirements for determining the citizenship of a corporation for the purposes of invoking the diversity jurisdiction of the federal courts. 

In Hertz Corp. v. Friend 30 S. Ct. 1181, 175 L. Ed. 2d 1029 (2010), the Supreme Court identified two principal approaches to determining corporate citizenship for diversity purposes:  the locations of a corporation’s “business activities” versus a corporation’s “nerve center,” which might or might not overlap with the corporation’s nominal headquarters.  See id. at 1190-91.  But, despite the Court’s efforts, the shifting nature of the modern business place might reduce Hertz to a mere way-station on a longer journey.Continue Reading Supreme Court Gives Direction on Corporate Citizenship