Virginia Injury Attorney Blog

On July 30, 2012, Mr. Waterman served Plaintiff’s Expert Designations in Burrell v. Riverside Hosp. Inc., No. CL1101633F-15 in Circuit Court for the City of Newport News, Virginia. That medical malpractice suit is scheduled for trial during November 26-December 7, 2012.

Plaintiff re-designated as retained experts Nurse Cheeley of Chesterfield Technical Center, Dr. Green of MCV, Dr. Parvizi of Jefferson Hospital, Dr. Rordorf of Harvard, and Dr. Trieshmann of Newport News. She also newly designated for her medical malpractice case Nurse Levin and Dr. Evans.

Nurse Levin, who opines Riverside committed multi-prong medical malpractice, is an orthopaedic trauma nurse and the Director of the National Association of Orthopaedic Nurses. Dr. Evans, who opines that Riverside’s alleged malpractice caused the patient’s hospital fall, stroke and permanent disability, holds a joint appointment at the University of Virginia School of Medicine as Professor of Radiology and Neurosurgery.

On July 12, 2012, Mr. Waterman served plaintiff's Second Motion to Compel in the medical malpractice lawsuit captioned Arshan v. Plotnick, et al., No. CL11-1316 in Circuit Court for the City of Williamsburg and James City County, Virginia. The Motion seeks answers and responses from the defendant doctor and corporation to the Discovery Requests of the plaintiff executor for the estate of the deceased patient, Sharon Britt.

Re the Second Discovery Requests in the Plotnick wrongful death case, Dr. Plotnick and his professional corporation still are withholding their billings and any write-offs and write-downs from the deceased patient. Their billings evince what patient services they represented to third-party payors they provided to Ms. Britt, while any write-off/write-down arguably evinces an admission of fault/liability by them.

On July 10, 2012, Mr. Waterman served Plaintiff's Motion to Compel in the medical malpractice case of Myron M. Arshan, Executor of the Estate of Sharon L. Britt v. Stephen E. Plotnick, M.D., et al., No. CL11-1316 in the Circuit Court for the City of Williamsburg and James City County, Virginia. The deceased Williamsburg resident was found dead by her 8 year-old son in 2008 after accidentally overdosing on very powerful narcotics - Fentanyl, Methadone, and Olanzapine - prescribed her by the Defendant Virginia Beach doctor, whose medical license was suspended by Virginia's Board of Medicine shortly thereafter.

On July 10, 2012, Circuit Court for Gloucester County, Virginia, scheduled the brain injury case of Gagnon v. Burns, No. CL08-572, for Initial Pre-Trial Conference. Per the mandate of the Virginia Supreme Court, retrial before a jury for sovereign immunity on the issue of gross negligence will be set then.

Currently the parties anticipate 3-4 days of retrial. After a 2-week trial in 2010, the jury found Assistant Principal Travis Burns guilty of simple negligence and awarded the brain injury victim roughly $6,100,000.00 in damages against all Defendants.

The July 2012 issue of Trial reports a favorable verdict entitled “CLERGY NEGLIGENCE: Archdiocese Fails to Protect Student from Abusive Priest”. The jury awarded $1,000,000.00 for the sexual abuse victim’s “post-traumatic stress, depression, and other psychological problems”. Id. at 10.

Over a 2-year period, a Roman Catholic priest allegedly molested the crime victim 21 times. The priest’s archdiocese - a corporation! - was found “negligence and reckless” because it allegedly “failed to supervise [the priest], prevent his access to children, and warn of his history of pedophilia despite a previous sexual abuse complaint against him at another assignment.” Id.

Trial is the monthly magazine of American Association Justice (“AAJ”), www.justice.org, formerly known as the American Trial Lawyer’s Association (“ATLA”). Mr. Waterman has been a member of AAJ for decades, and has represented sexual abuse and other crime victims.

On July 6, 2012, Mr. Waterman appeared in Circuit Court for Gloucester County, Virginia, on Plaintiff’s Motion to Compel Defendant. Over defense Objection, the Judge ordered that Defendant’s insurer had to produce any contemporaneous witness statements taken for the auto accident underlying Lyles v. Calloway, No. CL10000070-00.

On June 7, 2012, the Virginia Supreme Court in Napper v. ABM Janitorial Servs. - Mid Atlantic, Inc., No. 111300 (Va. Jun. 7, 2012), held that an Arlington County tenant’s employee was entitled to maintain a personal injury suit against the building janitors for slipping and falling in a lobby puddle. In that special case, Defendants unsuccessfully sought to interpose a Workers’ Compensation bar, claiming the tenant and janitorial employees were “statutory employees”.