Virginia: Patient Falls – a Lawyer’s Intrusion

placeholder image big

On October 4, 2012, Riverside Hospital, Inc. brought two Motions on for “emergency” telephonic hearing before the Judge in the patient fall case of Shirley Frazier Burrell v. Riverside Hospital, Inc. and Nurse M. Ames, No. CL11-1633 in the Circuit Court for the City of Newport News, Virginia. They were not well-founded, and Mr. Waterman prevailed on both Motions.

The Judge denied Riverside’s Motion to interpose one of its retained experts into Plaintiff’s case-in-chief. Riverside withdrew its other Motion to confine Plaintiff’s case-in-chief to the first week of the two-week Burrell medical malpractice jury trial, which is scheduled from November 26-December 7, 2012.

The patient fall victim in Burrell seeks $10,350,000 in damages for the broken leg and permanent debilitating stroke she sustained while under the care of Riverside and its nurses. In 2005, Mr. Waterman secured a $1,650,000 jury verdict against Riverside in another patient fall case in the same Court, which the Virginia Supreme Court upheld in Riverside v. Johnson, 272 Va. 518 (2006).