$360 Million Verdict Against Cumberland Hospital for Sexual Abuse of Adolescent Patients
Won by Breit Biniazan.
A Richmond Circuit Court jury awarded $360 million to three former adolescent patients who were sexually abused by Cumberland Hospital's medical director during admission exams, in what ranks among the largest personal-injury verdicts in Virginia history.
What happened
Cumberland Hospital for Children and Adolescents, a behavioral health facility in New Kent County operated by Universal Health Services, admitted teenage patients struggling with psychiatric and behavioral crises. For years, those patients passed through an admissions process overseen by the facility's medical director, Dr. Daniel Davidow. Three former patients alleged that Davidow used that process as cover for sexual abuse, inappropriately touching them during what he characterized as femoral pulse examinations.
The civil lawsuit, filed in 2020 under the case caption A.B.E., E.C., H.E.B. v. Cumberland Hospital LLC et al., grew into a broader action on behalf of more than 40 survivors. The plaintiffs argued that the hospital's owners and operators knew Davidow posed a danger to patients and should have removed him long before the abuse ran its course. Davidow denied all allegations. A criminal trial in April 2024 ended in his acquittal, when a judge found him not guilty on four felony sexual abuse charges, a result that did not preclude the civil proceedings.
The civil trial before the Richmond Circuit Court ran three weeks, beginning September 9, 2024. The Breit Biniazan trial team, led by Kevin Biniazan alongside co-counsel Lee Floyd and Scott Perry, presented evidence that the hospital's corporate leadership had ignored warning signs about Davidow's conduct. The jury deliberated approximately seven hours before returning a verdict on September 27, 2024.
The jury awarded $120 million per plaintiff: $20 million in compensatory damages, $40 million in punitive damages, and $60 million in treble damages under the Virginia Consumer Protection Act, reaching $360 million across the three plaintiffs. Defendants moved for a new trial and challenged the consumer-protection claims. In a June 2025 ruling, the Richmond Circuit judge denied both motions and upheld the verdict, but applied Virginia's statutory cap on punitive damages, which limited each plaintiff's punitive award to $350,000. That reduction lowered each plaintiff's recovery to $80,350,000 and brought the total to just over $241 million. More than 40 additional former patients have pending claims against the same defendants.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.