On the next U.S. Attorney for the W.D. Va.

The Roanoke paper reported earlier that Tim Heaphy will be the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Virginia.

As I wrote here, I knew Tim Heaphy a little back in the day. And, I've seen him a few times since, at VBA meetings and in the Abingdon courthouse, a fine fellow and excellent lawyer. He and Toby Vick got the acquittal for the defendants in the Byrd Brothers trial that I watched a bit of, December before last.

Watch what you ask for

VLW Blog cited to this opinion by Judge Moon, in McIntyre v. Aetna, wherein Judge Moon refused to grant the parties' motion to vacate a final judgment on appeal to the Fourth Circuit. Judge Moon held, consistent with any number of prior W.D. Va. cases, that if the parties burn the court's time by taking a case to final judgment, they're stuck with it. To similar effect were Judge Jones's rulings in Evans v. Mullins and U.S. Trustee v. Equipment Services.

We got Judge Glen Williams to grant vacatur in a case one time, following the steps set forth in Fobian v. Storage Tech. Corp., 164 F.3d 887 (4th Cir. 1999), but it seemed kind of a close-run thing. It is the only context I know of where the District Court gives an advisory opinion, so the Court of Appeals knows to remand the case to it to act on the motion.