by KPMLAW | Apr 25, 2016 | KPMBlog, News, Uncategorized, Updates
The issue of transgender restrooms continues to evolve, and last week, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia became the first federal court to weigh in on the issue. The ruling comes in the case of G.G. v. Gloucester County School Board. The case has received a great deal of attention due to the recent controversial legislative enactments in North Carolina and other states, which have attempted to legislate which restroom transgender persons must use. G.G. was born female and when the vents of this lawsuit had taken place, had begun hormone therapy. G.G. legally changed his name to a traditionally male name and prior to his sophomore year, informed the school that he was a transgender boy. By all accounts, G.G. lived all aspects of his life as a boy. In late 2014, the Gloucester County School Board prohibited G.G. from using the male restroom in his high school. G.G. sued the School Board on the grounds that the school discriminated against him in violation of Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution, and he moved for a preliminary injunction to stop the school’s restroom prohibition. The District Court denied the injunction, holding that G.G. lacked sufficient evidence after it refused to consider hearsay expert testimony on the topic. It further held that using a unisex bathroom in the school was not unduly burdensome compared to the hardship to the other students caused by G.G’s presence in the men’s restroom. Finally, the District Court granted the School Board’s Rule 12(b)(6) Motion to Dismiss the Title IX allegations, claiming that requiring G.G. to use...
by KPMLAW | Apr 24, 2016 | KPMBlog, News, Uncategorized, Updates
KPM LAW is honored to have two of its attorneys selected to the 2016 Virginia Super Lawyers list, as well as an attorney selected to the 2016 Virginia Rising Stars list. Partners Claire Carr and Brian Cafritz, both of the Richmond office, have been named to the 2016 Virginia Super Lawyers list, while Rachel Riordan, also a partner in the Richmond office, has been named to the 2016 Virginia Rising Star list for a second time. Super Lawyers, a part of Thompson Reuters, is a rating service of outstanding lawyers from more than 70 practice areas who have attained a high degree of recognition and professional achievement. Super Lawyers utilizes a patented and multiphasic selection process that includes peer nominations, evaluations, and independent research by Super Lawyers. The Super Lawyers List recognizes no more than 5% of Virginia attorneys while the Rising Star list recognizes no more than 2.5%. Please join us in congratulating Claire, Brian and Rachel on their achievements in the...
by KPMLAW | Feb 23, 2016 | KPMBlog, News, Uncategorized
Author: Brian Cafritz, Esq. By law, most states require restaurants or retailers to provide suitable restrooms for its guests. But which guest is permitted to use which restroom is becoming an issue that restaurants and retailers must ask themselves to avoid legal action related to discrimination or privacy violations. If your guest is transgender, what obligation does the restaurant or retailer have to provide a facility for that guest? What duty does the business have to protect its other guests from what may be an invasion of privacy? What should the business’ employees do when speaking to the transgender guest to resolve any confusion? While the issues of transgender equality, anti-discrimination, and privacy are currently focused on state-run government properties, public restrooms found in Retail and Restaurant establishments must take notice. Absent legislative enactment, what is a restaurant or retailer to do? The easy answer for restaurants and retailers is that single occupancy restrooms are preferred and should be made gender neutral. Indeed, this is legislated in some jurisdictions already (See the District of Columbia). For buildings that only have multiple occupancy restrooms, they can often be easily retrofitted for more privacy. Urinary dividers and/or stall doors and walls can be extended from ceiling to floor. Regardless of the physical layout of the restroom, employees of restaurants and retailers should be trained on handling this sensitive issue. The best practice is to allow guests to use restrooms of their sexual identification, rather than biologic gender. Employees should not openly prevent guests from using a restroom consistent with the guest’s sexual identity. Moreover, under no circumstances, should the employee take...
by KPMLAW | Jan 18, 2016 | KPMBlog, News, Uncategorized, Updates
Author: Chris Bergin, Esq. Editor: Brian Cafritz, Esq. In today’s specialized society, hiring independent contractors is a necessity. As demonstrated in the recent September 2015 Virginia circuit court decision, Cherry v. Palace on Plume St., how one executes the master-servant relationship is a key issue that directly impacts one’s liability. The widely accepted general rule is that employers are vicariously liable for the torts of their employees, but not for the torts of their independent contractors. In today’s environment where road rage, random violence, and binge drinking are commonplace, business owners have a greater burden to provide a safe haven for its patrons. Using independent contractors to perform security service allows the premises owner the benefit of security services, but greatly limits his risk of liability for any torts the independent contractor might commit while performing those services—assault, battery, false imprisonment, and negligence, to name a few. Hiring an independent contractor, however, is not a panacea. A business can still be held vicariously liable for the torts of its independent contractors when certain factors exist. Those factors include scenarios where the independent contractor was hired to conduct work that was: (1) unlawful, (2) a nuisance, (3) inherently dangerous, or (4) likely to produce injury “in the natural course of events,” unless special precautions were taken. Fortunately, the Supreme Court of Virginia has held that security guard work generally does not fall into any of these categories. See Broaddus v. Standard Drug Co., 211 Va. 645, 179 S.E.2d 497 (1971). Yet another boon for the restaurant and retail owner. However, the court may find that the contractor’s negligence is imputed...
by KPMLAW | Sep 14, 2015 | KPMBlog, News, Uncategorized
Author: Brian Cafritz, Esquire It is all too common that a customer or piece of equipment spills or drips liquid on the floor. The business learns of the problem and places a cone on the floor either prior to cleaning or after cleaning. Despite the warning cone, a guest falls and sues the business for negligence. Because Virginia applies a contributory negligence standard (1% negligence by plaintiff is a total bar to recovery), the defendant almost always has a decent liability argument to take to the jury. However, the real goal is to have the case dismissed on summary judgment and avoid the uncertainty of a jury altogether. Over the last 12 months, several new opinions in Virginia Federal Courts have provided valuable guidance on how to assess the potential liability of these claims, and they specifically point to critical facts to determine whether summary judgment is appropriate or not. In each of the cases, the court focused on fact issues, such as “How close was the cone to the fall?” and “Was the condition that caused the fall the same condition the cone was warning against? Like most states, the general law of premises liability in Virginia is that a business owes a duty to exercise reasonable care to make the particular area reasonably safe for plaintiff’s use, or to give adequate warning of any hidden or concealed danger that it knows or should know about. However, behind that basic tenet of the law, there are a seemingly infinite number of variations in fact patterns that make the simplest concept problematic. Over the years, the Virginia Supreme Court...
