A Federal Tort Claims Act case involving the death of a patient at a skilled and long term care facility was recently settled by the attorneys of Pierce & Thornton. The decedent, a seventy-six year old woman, was admitted to the nursing home where she was to undergo physical therapy…
The Virginia Lawyers Weekly recently reported that a federal court in Virginia held that a widow whose husband died in a collision with a tractor-trailer may sue the truck driver for punitive damages, which are damages exceeding normal compensation that are meant to punish the defendant. The Court in this…
A recent article in The Washington Post reported that surgical “never” events – errors that should never occur, such as leaving an instrument inside a patient or operating on the wrong body part – resulted in paid medical malpractice claims about 500 times a year throughout the country, including Virginia.…
Two personal injury claims, both of which involved automobile accidents, were recently settled by the attorneys of Pierce & Thornton. The first accident involved our client being struck from behind while traveling north on Independence Blvd. in Virginia Beach, Virginia. The impact from the accident was severe enough to cause…
The Virginian-Pilot recently reported that a bicyclist died in the Hampton Roads area after being hit by a van while riding down Northampton Blvd. near the border between Virginia Beach and Norfolk. According to the Norfolk Police, the bicyclist was struck at approximately 12:25 p.m., and was unfortunately pronounced dead…
The Virginian-Pilot recently reported that a 19-year-old man died in the Hampton Roads area when his motorcycle collided with a car on Interstate 64. According to the Virginia State Police, the man riding the motorcycle came into contact with a Jeep Cherokee and lost control, ran off the road, hit…
A recent article in The Wall Street Journal reported that medical mistakes kill enough people each week to fill four jumbo jets. The story reported that: (1) U.S. surgeons operate on the wrong body part as often as 40 times a week; (2) about a quarter of all hospitalized patients…
Virginia residents should be aware that a recent study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services covering the 15 percent of the U.S. population enrolled in Medicare found that each month one out of seven Medicare hospital patients is injured-and an estimated 15,000 are killed-by harmful medical practice.…
A jury in Charlottesville, Virginia recently awarded more than $10.5 million to the family of a woman who died after a concrete mixer truck fell on her car in 2007. The victims were a married couple from southwest Virginia who were travelling on State Route 53 when their car was…
According to a news reports, the federal government will pay $2.3 million to settle a medical malpractice lawsuit involving a Virginia child born with neurological damage at Portsmouth Naval Medical Center. The parents of the child alleged that inadequate care at the hospital caused their child to be born with…