FIRM NEWS ARCHIVE: 2007

BECAUSE THE RESULTS OBTAINED IN SPECIFIC CASES DEPEND ON A VARIETY OF FACTORS UNIQUE TO EACH CASE, PAST CASE RESULTS DO NOT GUARANTEE OR PREDICT A SIMILAR RESULT IN FUTURE CASES UNDERTAKEN BY A LAWYER OR LAW FIRM.

News Archive: 2007

• 12/1/07 - James Mick Kessel raised over $1,000 for the Muscular Dystrophy Association's 1st Annual "Richmond Legal Leaders Who Care."

• 11/21/07 - John C. Shea attended a meeting in New Port Beach, California on November 21, 2007 of counsel from around the county investigating legal action against the makers of Complete Moisture Plus, a defective contact lens solution manufactured by Advanced Medical Optics.

• 11/16/07 - John C. Shea attended the American Association for Justice's seminar "New Avenues to Justice: The Art, Science and Psychology of Persuasion" held in: Las Vegas, Nevada on November 16 and 17, 2007.

• 11/12/07 - John C. Shea and S. Aaron Barr represented Marks & Harrison at the Masters Marketing Group (MMG) in Miami, Florida this week. MMG is comprised of attorneys, from across the United States, who meet biannually to discuss marketing, advertising, public relations and operations as they relate to law firms.

• 11/9/07 - Kyle Leftwich Banning served as Chairman of the event committee for the recent International Hospital for Children (IHC) “Treasures in Paradise” Auction & Fashion Show in Richmond.  The IHC event was held on November 9, 2007 and raised over $425,000.  IHC is a Richmond-based nonprofit humanitarian organization which links pediatric critical care resources to children in developing countries. IHC focuses on the immediate healing of children while helping its partner countries achieve sustainable, long-term solutions to providing pediatric critical care.  Over 200 pediatric physicians donate their time and expertise to IHC, including most pediatric specialists in Richmond.  These volunteer physicians are from all three major hospital systems in the Richmond area, including VCU/MCV, HCA, and Bon Secours. 

• 10/23/07 - John D. Ayers and Roger T. Creager taught at the CLE seminar "Plaintiff's Personal Injury: Practice Tips and Application. Roger gave a presentation on the basics of Civil Practice and Procedure. John Gave a presentation on Personal Injury Settlements, including ERISA liens.

   

• 10/19/07 - John C. Shea was asked to participate in the presentation "Know Your Audience. What Jurors Say Wins Jury Trials" held during the Sixteenth Annual Bench-Bar Conference on October 18, 2007. The Bench-Bar Conference is a cooperative effort of the Richmond metropolitan area bar associations. John C. Shea served on a panel with Judge Dennis W. Dohnal, Judge Michael C. Allen, and Michael S. Shelton in which a panel of former jurors shared their experiences in trials held both in state and federal court.

• 10/15/07 - Ingrid Renee Pearson turned to Marks & Harrison after a car, traveling between 70 and 90 mph, struck her vehicle throwing it into several other cars and a utility pole.  Ingrid spent weeks at VCU Medical Center after the accident with injuries to her brain, pelvis, and spleen. Read more about Ingrid and her amazing recovery, after a life-threatening accident, at http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/search.apx.-content-articles-RTD-2007-10-15-0165.html

• 10/15/07 - Roger T. Creager was the speaker at a Richmond Bar Association seminar on September 13, 2007, on two topics:  a) the impact of the Virginia Supreme Court’s Benitez opinion regarding the good-faith pleading requirements of Virginia law, and b) application of Virginia evidentiary principles to accident reconstruction testimony.

• 10/15/07 - Marks & Harrison welcomes Mark S. Lindensmith. Mark comes to Marks and Harrison after having served for over 27 years as a  research director and senior attorney at the National Legal Research Group, Inc.,  one of the nation’s oldest and  largest legal research firms, located here in Virginia.  He has specialized in personal injury, health law, insurance, and torts.  During that time, he supervised or prepared briefs, pleadings, and reports in literally thousands of personal injury, wrongful death, and insurance cases, and he has advised other attorneys nationwide in the preparation or defense of their personal injury and torts cases.  Many hundreds of those cases arose out of Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina and Maryland.  He has written briefs for numerous state supreme courts throughout the country, many of the federal circuit courts, and has prepared writs of certiorari to the United States Supreme Court. 

   

              Lindensmith is a native of Missouri, and he is a 1976 honors graduate of Missouri Western State College.  He received his law degree from the University of Nebraska in 1979 and was admitted to the Nebraska State Bar in 1979.  He has been a member of the Virginia State Bar since 1981, and he is a member of the American Bar Association and is a past member of the American Association for Justice.  In addition to serving as a senior attorney with the research and consulting firm, he has represented children as a certified guardian ad litem in the Albemarle County area, and he has written a number of legal articles over the years for various publications, including TRIAL Magazine, American Law Reports, Causes of Action, and others.  In his spare time, he has written award-winning fiction, including numerous short stories for various magazines and literary journals, has been a resident fellow in fiction writing at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and he was the recipient of a grant from the Virginia Commission for the Arts for a novel-in-progress.  His first collection of short stories was published by Southern Methodist University Press in 1996. 

              He and his wife, Gaytha, make their home in Bridgewater, Virginia, and they have six adult children. 

• 10/1/07 - Michelle L. Rowling receives Marks & Harrison's scholarship. The scholarship is given each year to a law student interested in a career in personal injury at the T.C. Williams School of Law.

• 10/1/07 - John C. Shea selected for inclusion in the 25th anniversary edition of The Best Lawyers in America in the specialty of Personal Injury Litigation. Best Lawyers in considered the most respected referral list of attorneys in practice due to the fact it is based on an exhaustive and rigorous peer-review survey comprising more than 2 million confidential evaluations by the top attorneys in the country.

• 9/15/07 - Marks & Harrison sponsored the 6th annual Que Pasa Festival of Virginia. Acording to the Virginia HIspanic Chamber of Commerce the festival provides an opportunity to share the Hispanic culture and spirit, says Michel Zajur, president of the Virginia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (VAHCC), which is hosting the event in partnership with State Farm Insurance. Virginia’s Hispanic population is more than 427,000 and the Commonwealth’s fastest-growing ethnic community. More than 10,000 visitors from around the Commonwealth and region are expected to attend the event, which will be held rain or shine, in tents and in the science museum.
  
  “This festival brings the Hispanic culture and experience to everyone, right here in the heart of Virginia,” Zajur says. “There will be great music and performing arts, delicious food and unique arts and crafts. As its name means in Spanish, the festival is the Hispanic “what’s happening” in the Commonwealth.”
  
  The Que Pasa Festival was founded in 2000 and is part of the VAHCC’s commitment to foster bonds and grow relationships between the state and its Hispanic community through a range of cultural, business and social activities.  

• 7/16/07 -  James Mick Kessel, John C. Shea, and Eric D. Yost attended the American Association for Justice’s (AAJ) national convention in Chicago, Illinois. The AAJ convention is held annually giving members from across the county the chance to meet and discuss important issues in the legal field as well as decide what policies the group will pursue during the upcoming year.  Guest speakers included U.S. Senator Joseph Biden, Jr., U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton, U.S. Senator Barack Obama, Governor Bill Richardson, and former U.S. Senator John Edwards.

   As the only representatives from Virginia to be appointed to the Board of Governors of the New Lawyers Division, James and Eric had the opportunity to meet with Democratic National Committee Chairman, Howard Dean, and help determine how to best express the group’s political and social message of “Justice” throughout the United States. 

   

• 7/1/07 - Roger T. Creager was appointed to serve as the Chair of the Virginia State Bar’s Standing Committee on Legal Ethics.  The Committee studies and issues opinions regarding legal ethics questions submitted to the Virginia State Bar by Virginia lawyers.  Creager has served on the Committee since 2002.

   

• 6/22/07 - Victim of truck wreck gets settlement of $12M

  Jerome Stewart was left a quadriplegic in an instant on Dec. 27, 2005.

  The circumstances surrounding that instant became "a very highly contested and expensively waged war" that resulted earlier this month in a $12 million settlement for Stewart, according to Richmond attorney John C. Shea.

  Stewart, a cobbler, was working at his part-time job of delivering The Washington Post in Fairfax County when a garbage truck owned by Potomac Disposal Services of Virginia LLC collided with his 1990 Jeep Cherokee.

  Stewart said the garbage truck backed suddenly into a street at 3:45 a.m. as he

  was driving at about 20 mile per hour on his newspaper route. The driver contended that he had backed slowly into the street and stopped a few seconds before the collision so that Stewart had every opportunity to avoid the collision.

  However the crash occurred, Stewart's spinal cord was damaged at the C5-C6 level, leaving him with no use of his arms and legs. He has been in a hospital, rehabilitation center or nursing home since the wreck.

  He has suffered every possible complication from the injury—pneumonia, sepsis, urinary tract infection and bed sores among them, according to Joseph M. Caturano Jr., the Manassas attorney whom Stewart's family retained the day of the crash. Caturano then associated Shea and Shea's colleague, Roger T. Creager.

  Stewart's medical bills exceed $1 million. He had no health insurance but was fortunate that The Post's independent contractor for whom he worked had a workers' compensation policy that covered him, even though she was not required to provide such coverage.

  Caturano said Stewart, 60, "would never have received the level of care that he got" without the coverage. His attorneys are negotiating the amount of the lien that the workers' comp carrier has against the settlement amount.

  Creager said the key point in the case was the allegation that Stewart was contributorily negligent, which would have barred any recovery.

  Stewart's attorneys had three strategies to undercut the defense in addition to Stewart's testimony that he was not negligent at all.

  They learned early in discovery that the driver, who had been working for the company for only a few months, had been involved in two relatively minor accidents—bumping into a building on one occasion and driving onto a grassy area on another.

  That led to an amended count of negligent retention, which a judge ruled allowed some evidence about the earlier problems the driver had had. Stewart's attorneys contended that a proper response to those incidents would have alerted the company to the driver's failure to abide by the training he had received.

  Because of the size of garbage trucks and the lack of visibility the driver has to the rear of the vehicle, drivers are trained to avoid backing up if at all possible.

  Discovery showed that the driver routinely ignored that training on his route and backed in front of Stewart, even though he could have maneuvered the truck through a parking lot to an exit that would have allowed a clear view of traffic from the front.

  That information set up a contention that his conduct was wanton and willful, which would have trumped the defense claim of contributory negligence.

  The third strategy was to challenge testimony from experts retained by the defense to reconstruct Stewart's perception of the hazard created by the truck and his reaction to it. His attorneys contended that Supreme Court of Virginia cases barred such testimony because it relied in part on assumptions and speculation.

  In preparing for mediation and trial, Stewart's attorneys engaged two focus groups and videotaped and transcribed the discussion of group members. They also retained Alan Michaelis of Alcar Inc. to prepare a multimedia presentation.

  The primary insurer, Zurich American Insurance Co., offered its policy limits of $2 million to settle the case, but the excess insurer, Liberty Insurance Underwriters Inc., refused to offer any of its $25 million of coverage after a day-long mediation session with retired Judge Robert L. Harris Sr.

  Despite that initial failure, Harris continued "to negotiate with, harangue and massage both sides" over the next month until the settlement was reached, Shea said. Although Harris has earned a reputation for tenacity in mediating cases, "I have never seen him make such an effort over such a protracted period of time," Shea said.

  Stewart's attorneys said the attitude of their client, a father of four with seven grandchildren, made it easy for them to be enthusiastic about the case.

  His wife stayed by his bedside 24 hours a day for months, sleeping in a chair, they said.

  "This man never complained," Shea said. "I never heard him whine once. He never said, 'Why me?' "

  - Alan Cooper

  
  
  © 2007 Lawyers Weekly Inc., All Rights Reserved.

   

• 6/20/07 - A portrait of C. Hardaway Marks was dedicated to his memory at the Hopewell Court House where it will be displayed. A Hopewell native, Hardaway Marks served in the House of Delegates from 1962 until 1991 representing the people of Hopewell, Prince George, Charles City and Surry County. Hardaway was a product of Hopewell Public Schools, Wake Forest University, Duke University and the University of Virginia Law School. He was a Captain in the United States Marine Corps and also served in the Virginia National Guard. A true American hero, Hardaway was awarded the Purple Heart as a result of his wound during the Battle of Iwo Jima. At the time of his retirement from the General Assembly Hardaway was ranked as one of the 10 most powerful and effective members of the General Assembly. Hardaway's accomplishments were monumental with the major ones being: Chairman Courts of Justice Committee, Chairman of the Corporation, Insurance and Banking Committee, Member of Privileges and Elections and the Rules Committee. A staunch Indian Advocate, Hardaway initiated legislation that create the Virginia Indian Commission and was the commission's first chairman. Hardaway was a founding partner of the Marks & Harrison law firm and a member of the Virginia State Bar for 50 years. He was also the founding Chairman of the Virginia Alcohol Safety Action Program receiving their Distinguished Service Ward in 2000. Hardaway was delighted in 1998 when he received the honor of having the Route 10 bridges between Hopewell and Chesterfield name in his honor. As an avid defender of the rights of Virginia's citizens, Hardaway established an illustrious law career. Beginning in the United States Department of Justice, the as a sole practitioner, and later as a founding partner of Marks & Harrison. Hardaway touched countless numbers of lives. Charles Hardaway Marks will be remembered not only for his outstanding legal and legislative career but also for his wisdom and profound dedication to the people of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

• 6/16/07 - Marks & Harrison has patterned with the Tappahannock Rivah Fest. The firm will have a tent at the event providing drinks to those in attendance. The Rivah Fest will take place on June 16 in Tappahannock, VA.

• 6/7/2007 - John C. Shea served as co-host of the VTLA 8th Advanced Auto Retreat held in Charlottesville. Marks & Harrison attorneys Gregory S. Hooe and Andrea J. Geiger also attended the event.

• 61//2007 - Kyle Leftwich Banning was elected President of the Board of Directors of the Virginia Poverty Law Center (VPLC) at the June 2007 Board Meeting at McGuire Woods in Richmond.  VPLC was established in 1978 as a non-profit organization concentrating on the areas of law that affect low-income families.  VPLC is the state support center for all of legal aid in Virginia, providing technical assistance, training, and publications to Virginia’s Legal Aid Programs. VPLC also provides nonpartisan information about issues affecting low-income families and children to legislators and government agencies.  VPLC maintains a website at www.vplc.org.

• 5/21/07 - Attorneys from Marks & Harrison participated in the Virginia College of Trial Advocacy held at the University of Richmond on May 18 and 19, 2007. John C. Shea served as a lecturer and Joanna L. Suyes, John D. Ayers, Eric D. Yost, Jamie M. Kessel,  and J. Penn Crawford attended as students at this annual program sponsored by the Virginia Trial Lawyers Association.

The Virginia College of Trial Advocacy program this year focused on Opening  and Closing                 Arguments. Along with outstanding trial lawyers from Virginia, one of the nations leading trial attorneys, John F. Romano from West Palm Beach, Florida, served as a featured speaker.

• 5/18/07 - Kyle Leftwich Banning, Recipient of the 2007 Krista Latshaw Pro Bono Service Award/

  Kyle Leftwich Banning has been an attorney volunteer for LINC since it was founded in 1996. She has represented numerous LINC clients in Social Security cases and with related legal issues. After graduation from the University of Virginia, Ms. Banning worked in the Virginia Governor’s Office for Governor Gerald L. Baliles. Kyle graduated from University of Richmond’s School of Law in 1993, and has been an attorney with the law firm of Marks & Harrison since 1994. Kyle is very active in the legal community, serving as Chairman of Virginia Trial Lawyers’ Association Social Security Section (2000-present) and also serving currently as the Vice-President of the Board of Directors of the Virginia Poverty Law Center. Kyle is an active volunteer with numerous community organizations, including work on projects for Massey Cancer Center and the International Hospital for Children (IHC).

   Kyle has dedicated her work for LINC to the memory of her mother, Edith Birchett Leftwich, who lost her cancer battle while Kyle was in law school. Kyle has described her work with LINC as follows: “My work with LINC is very inspirational. It has allowed me to use my law degree for a cause that is close to my heart. My work with LINC has been the most rewarding work I have done in my legal career.”

   Kyle is very proud to be honored by LINC with the 2007 Krista Latshaw Pro Bono Service Award.

• 5/1/07 - Marks and Harrison is pleased to have joined with a number of law firms and businesses in the Central Virginia area in sponsoring the celebration of the 100^th birthday of Oliver W. Hill on Friday, May 4, 2007. Oliver W. Hill is a legal legend having joined with other civil rights pioneers in pursuing civil rights litigation on behalf of African Americans in Virginia. The work of Oliver W. Hill led to greater rights for all American citizens and in August of 1999 Mr. Hill received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in America. In July of 2005 Mr. Hill was awarded the NAACP’s highest award, the Spingarn Medal.

   

• 4/27/07 -

• 4/25/07 - John C. Shea attended the annual meeting of Masters Marketing Group in New Orleans.

• 4/1/07 - John C. Shea was named State Delegate to the American Association for Justice.

• 4/1/07 - Andrea J. Geiger was named President of the young Trial Lawyer Section of VTLA

• 3/28/07 - On behalf of Marks & Harrison, Kyle Leftwich Banning attended University of Richmond Law School’s 24th Annual Scholarship Luncheon in March.  The luncheon was held to honor the law school’s scholarship donors and recipients.  Marks & Harrison supports/donates a scholarship to the University of Richmond law school each year. 

• 3/8/07 - John C. Shea was  the guest speaker on personal injury at the 28th Annual "Bridge the Gap" Seminar. This seminar provides young lawyers the opportunity to gain valuable insight from attorneys in various practice areas.

• 2/25/07 - Roger T. Creager presented oral argument to all the Justices of the Virginia Supreme Court in a case which requires the Court to decide whether a tenant injured due to the fault of his landlord may bring a lawsuit against his landlord seeking to recover compensation for his personal injuries caused by the defective condition of the leased premises.  All six briefs filed in the Supreme Court, including the two briefs written by Creager and Long, are posted elsewhere on this webpage (see Press).

   

• 2/15/07 -  Roger T. Creager, acting as Vice-Chair of the Virginia State Bar Standing Committee on Legal Ethics, appeared before the Justices of the Virginia Supreme Court and made a presentation to the Justices regarding new formal Comments (concerning the ethical issues raised by undisclosed recordings of events) to Rule 8.4 of the Virginia Rules of Professional Conduct.  The proposed new Comments (which may be found on the Virginia State Bar’s website) were drafted by the Virginia State Bar Standing Committee on Legal Ethics, were published for public comment, and were approved by the Virginia State Bar Council.  The Virginia Supreme Court will now decide whether to adopt the proposed new Comments.

• 2/15/07 -  Roger T. Creager won a declaratory judgment in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Richmond Division, holding that an insurance company was obligated to provide $1 million of underinsured motorist coverage to the injured plaintiff, Donald L. Bundy III, represented by John C. Shea and Roger T. Creager of Marks & Harrison, P.C..   The briefs filed by Mr. Creager in support of Mr. Bundy’s position is posted under Press.

   

• 2/14/07 - John C. Shea attended the 2007 Southern Trial Lawyers conference in New Orleans.

• 2/7/07 - CNN aired a report that revealed the tactics many insurance companies are using to save themselves billions of dollars by reducing claims paid to minor-impact crash victims. These tactics—dubbed the “Three Ds,” delay, deny, and defend—are discussed in the report by former insurance industry insiders.

  The CNN reporter's research and interviews revealed that multiple major insurance providers have employed these tactics during the course of the past 10 years. The result: 80 percent to 90 percent of accident victims settling without a fight for the small sums the companies offer.

  Often, these sums are as small as $50 and $100 when the victims are facing thousands of dollars lost. 
  
  To read the full report and watch the video, please click on the links below:

  Article:  Anderson Cooper 360 Blog
  Insurance Companies Fight Paying

  Video Pt 1:  Griffin Insurance Video

  Video Pt 2:  Griffin Insurance Video 2
   

   

• 1/12/07 – In October of 2006, Roger T. Creager filed a Brief Amicus Curiae in the Virginia Supreme Court on behalf of the Virginia Trial Lawyers Association in support of a Virginia trial court's award of monetary penalties against a Ford Motor Company lawyer whom the trial court found filed defenses for which he lacked a sufficient good faith basis in fact and law.  On January 12, 2007, the Virginia Supreme Court agreed with the position and arguments advanced in Creager’s VTLA Amicus Curiae Brief and in the brief filed on behalf of the Plaintiff.  The case is Ford Motor Company v. Benitez (Virginia Supreme Court Record No. 051769).  The Court rejected arguments by Ford Motor Company and by the Virginia Association of Defense Attorneys, which filed an opposing Amicus Curiae Brief, that a defense lawyer should be given particularly wide latitude in asserting and preserving defenses.  The court held that the same standard and requirements must apply to lawyers for defendants as apply to lawyers for injured persons.  Creager’s brief also urged the Court to recognize, however, that in applying the good-faith pleading requirements courts should bear in mind that there are situations where lawyers for injured persons have little opportunity to investigate the case prior to filing suit.  The Court agreed, and noted that “if a plaintiff employs an attorney near the deadline of the statute of limitations, the attorney may have no alternative except reliance on the information his client imparts to him when preparing a last-minute pleading.”  The decision creates a fair and workable standard for lawyers representing both plaintiffs and defendants.  The decision was heralded by a front-page article in the January 22, 2007 issue of the Virginia Lawyers Weekly which noted Creager’s role in the case and quoted from his brief.  A copy of Creager’s VTLA Amicus Curiae Brief and a copy of the Virginia Supreme Court’s decision can both be found on this website under the heading, “Press,” below or by clicking here for the Ford v Benitez opinion and here for the Ford Motor v Benitez, VTLA Amicus Brief.

•  1/31/07 -  John D. Ayers presented a new law (HB3182) to the General Assembly.  It was passed by the House Courts of Justice, and should be approved by the full legislature during this session.  It allows medical record affidavits to be used in cases that are appealed by the insurance companies to the Circuit Court. 

• 1/24/07 - Six lawyers from Marks & Harrison participated in the Virginia Trial Lawyer Association’s Justice Day and met at the General Assembly Office Building with members of the Virginia Senate and House of Delegates regarding proposed legislation affecting the rights of Virginia citizens injured due to the fault of others. Marks & Harrison has played an active and leading role for years in communicating with Virginia legislators regarding the manner in which proposed legislation would help or damage the legal rights of injured Virginians.  Marks & Harrison’s role in these matters dates back as far as the distinguished role that firm founders, C. Hardaway Marks & David A. Harrison played.        

• 1/1/07 - Congratulations to J.R. Davis, who just ran his 3rd Richmond Marathon. This year with help from Marks & Harrison, friends and co-workers, J.R. raised money through pledges. All of the proceeds were donated to the Massey Cancer Center. J.R. has worked with Marks & Harrison since 1990 as an investigator and is currently training for his 4th Richmond Marathon.

• 1/1/07 - Andrea J. Geiger  joined Marks & Harrison as an Associate.