Virginia Court of Appeals Addresses Appellate Practice in Recent Case

On Tuesday, in a published opinion, the Virginia Court of Appeals took the opportunity to provide guidance for attorneys in appellate practice in Fadness v. Fadness, a divorce case. As the court stated:

The parties in this case have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on attorney’s fees, and years in protracted litigation. The massive 6,000 page joint appendix spans 19 separate volumes. The joint appendix’s table of contents alone is 66 pages long, but was of little use in providing guidance to relevant portions of the record. Despite the willingness of the attorneys in this case to file motion after motion in the trial court, they were apparently unwilling to expend the effort required to research several of the issues that they raise in this appeal, thereby preventing them from advancing the interests of their clients by making logical arguments based on legal authority. The “throw everything at the wall and hope something sticks” approach utilized in this appeal is as unappreciated as it is ineffective. If the parties were unable to find legal support for any of their eleven questions presented, or their numerous sub-questions, they should not have included those questions presented in their brief.

Appellate courts are not unlit rooms where attorneys may wander blindly about, hoping to stumble upon a reversible error. If the parties believed that the circuit court erred, it was their duty to present that error to us with legal authority to support their contention. Because the parties failed to do so, and because that failure is significant, they have waived their right to have these issues reviewed by this Court.

(emphasis added)