Jury Awards $20 Million to Boy Burned by 13,200 Volts in Virginia Power Substation
Won by Breit Biniazan.
A Charles City County jury returned a $20 million verdict for a ten-year-old boy who suffered third-degree burns across 25 percent of his body after contacting 13,200 volts inside an inadequately secured Virginia Power substation next to his Richmond apartment complex, and the Supreme Court of Virginia affirmed the award in full.
What happened
On July 21, 1996, a ten-year-old boy living in a Richmond, Virginia apartment complex found his way into an adjacent Virginia Electric and Power Company substation. The substation sat directly next to an outdoor common area where residents and children routinely gathered. The fence meant to secure the facility had not been properly installed or maintained, and the gap allowed the child to enter.
Once inside, he contacted a 13,200-volt electrical source. The resulting injuries were catastrophic: third-degree burns to his head, face, neck, arms, hands, and chest, covering 25 percent of his body. He was treated at Shriners Hospital and underwent eight surgical operations, including skin grafts. Medical experts testified that he would require additional reconstructive procedures into the future and would carry permanent scarring and disfigurement.
Attorneys Jeffrey Breit and Michael Imprevento, along with co-counsel, brought the case to trial in the Circuit Court of Charles City County, where Virginia Power's motion to move the case to Richmond was denied. The theory centered on Virginia Power's negligence in failing to properly install, inspect, and maintain the perimeter fence. Evidence showed the utility had knowledge or constructive notice of the deficiency and took no corrective action before the injury occurred.
The jury returned a verdict of $20,000,000 in compensatory damages. Virginia Power moved to set aside the verdict and sought remittitur, arguing the award was excessive. The trial court denied both motions. Virginia Power then appealed to the Supreme Court of Virginia.
In its September 17, 1999 opinion, the Supreme Court of Virginia affirmed the verdict without reduction. The court rejected each of Virginia Power's assignments of error, including challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence on negligence and to the size of the damages award. The $20 million judgment stood in full.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
More proven verdicts from Breit Biniazan
All Breit Biniazan proven verdicts →A Richmond Circuit Court jury awarded $360 million to three former adolescent patients who were sexually abused by Dr. Daniel Davidow, the medical director of Cumberland Hospital for Children, during what he called routine femoral pulse exams.
Nine boys abused by a Colonial Heights church youth leader secured a $17.61 million global settlement in July 2025, wrapping up nearly nine years of civil litigation and paying out four times what the defendants' insurers claimed they owed.
A Charlottesville jury awarded $15 million in May 2022 to the mother and sister of Yeardley Love, a University of Virginia lacrosse player killed by her former boyfriend in 2010, more than a decade after his criminal conviction.
A federal judge approved an $11.5 million settlement for a Virginia Beach Navy family whose son was born with severe brain damage at U.S. Naval Hospital Guam in 2014, after attorneys Michael Imprevento and Kevin Biniazan sued the federal government under the Federal Tort Claims Act.
Related premises liability verdicts
Anapol Weiss shareholder Kristen Gibbons Feden helped secure $1.6 billion in default verdicts for 104 women sexually abused as children by former Long Island pediatrician Stuart Copperman, one of the largest cumulative civil awards against a single individual in U.S. history.
A Dallas jury awarded $1.1 billion against a trust fund heir who beat a 2-year-old into a permanent vegetative state in 2021, a verdict the firm calls the largest child-assault award in U.S. history.
A Clayton County jury awarded $1 billion to a woman who was raped at age 14 by an armed security guard her employer hired without verifying he was licensed to carry a weapon.
Joseph Bruno and Bruno & Bruno served as lead plaintiffs' counsel in a landmark class action brought by more than 8,000 Gentilly residents exposed to a butadiene tank-car fire in 1987, securing a jury verdict that included $2.5 billion in punitive damages against CSX Transportation alone, later reduced to $850 million on appeal and affirmed by Louisiana's Fourth Circuit.