The Virginia Supreme Court reversed an appellate court’s decision affirming a $1.6 million medical malpractice verdict originally in favor of the patient, concluding the jury instruction supporting the physician’s defense that the plaintiff’s fall could have been caused by other means was improperly refused.
The high court concluded the trial court erroneously refused a jury instruction supporting the defendants’ theory that the patient, Patricia Hanger, could have sustained a traumatic brain injury from a fall from other means than what was presented by the plaintiff: that Dr. Allison L. Raines and Emergency Physicians of Tidewater allegedly failed to treat her hyponatremia, or low blood sodium, which caused her to suffer a seizure and fall, according to the April 4 opinion authored by Justice Thomas P. Mann.
