On January 16, 2018, Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters, Incorporated (“CHKD”) filed Motion Regarding Blog of Plaintiff’s Counsel in the medical malpractice case of Wilder v. CHKD, et al., No. CL16-8482-00 in Norfolk. As Defendant in that wrongful death case, which is set for jury trial on February 12, 2018, CHKD seeks to silence this blog during trial: “to require [Mr. Waterman] to immediately remove all information about this case from his website and other public material, discontinue blogging or otherwise publishing about this case, and deactivate the blog during trial.” Id. at 1.
Counsel for Defendant CHKD in Wilder also was counsel for the medical malpractice Defendants in Marshall v. Moniz, No. CL08-2018 in York County Circuit Court. In 2011, that same Defendants’ counsel in Marshall unsuccessfully tried to shut down Mr. Waterman’s blog, with Judge Designate Morrison from Norfolk Circuit Court ruling against Defendants. 2011 WL 13063214 (York Apr. 26, 2011).
Also, in another medical malpractice trial in 2012, Burrell v. Riverside Hosp., Inc., No. CL1101633F-15, Newport News Circuit Court likewise rejected Defendants’ motion to quiet this blog. The judicial activism sought by CHKD and other medical malpractice Defendants violates the First Amendment rights of “free speech” of Mr. Waterman and his law firm, provided them by the United States Constitution, the United States Supreme Court, and the Virginia Supreme Court.
In fact, historically Mr. Waterman has not blogged about a case during his trial of that case. But that remains his free choice, constitutionally.
