$2.5 Million Wrongful Death Settlement After Woman, 55, Is Struck by Poorly Secured Equipment
After trial: The case settled at mediation and the defendant was not publicly identified. Whether the family collected the full amount is not public.
Won by Emroch & Kilduff, Emroch & Kilduff, Richmond and Richmond.
A 55-year-old Virginia woman sitting in a chair was struck in the torso by a piece of equipment that was inadequately secured and maintained, and she died of a perforated heart. Her family brought a wrongful death claim against the company that owned the equipment. The case resolved at mediation before retired judge Michael Allen in June 2017 for $2.5 million. The defendant and the court were not identified in the published report.
What happened
A 55-year-old woman was sitting in a chair when a piece of machinery struck her in the torso. According to the account later published by Virginia Lawyers Weekly, the equipment belonged to the defendant company and had not been adequately secured or maintained. The blow perforated her heart. She died in the emergency room.
She left a husband, a retired military veteran to whom she had been married for four years, and two adult daughters, ages 28 and 23, both college-educated. Her family pursued a wrongful death claim against the company that owned the equipment.
The plaintiffs were represented by Walter H. Emroch and Thomas J. McNally of Richmond. To support the claim they retained emergency room physicians, a forensic pathologist and an economist. The medical testimony addressed what the injury was and how it caused her death, and the economist addressed the financial loss to the household.
The facts in the report are short: a woman seated in a chair, equipment that had not been adequately secured or maintained, and a fatal injury to the heart. Virginia's wrongful death statute lets a surviving spouse and children recover for the loss of the decedent's income, services and companionship, and the economist's work went to that financial side of the claim.
The defendant's position, as the published report describes it, was that the company would have denied liability. It was expected to argue contributory negligence and to say the incident could not have been foreseen. Those defenses are common in Virginia, where contributory negligence can bar recovery entirely if a jury finds the injured person shared any fault, so a settlement removes a real risk for a family in this position.
The parties did not try the case. They went to mediation in June 2017 before the Hon. Michael Allen, a retired judge, and the claim settled there for $2.5 million. The published report does not name the defendant, the type of equipment or any court in which suit was filed. Virginia Lawyers Weekly reported the result on October 23, 2017.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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Related wrongful death verdicts
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