A $2.65 Million Settlement When the Physical Injuries Healed but the Emotional Ones Did Not

A plaintiff in Virginia was hurt through another party's negligence. The injuries were serious enough to require hospitalization, followed by a longer course of follow-up treatment. Marks & Harrison took the case as a negligence and tort claim, with attorneys working out of the firm's Richmond and Petersburg offices.

By the time the case was ready to be valued, the medical picture had split in two. Physically, the plaintiff had recovered well. The lasting damage was emotional. The plaintiff kept struggling with the psychological aftermath of the incident, the kind of injury that leaves no scar and shows up on no scan.

That made the claim harder to put in front of a jury. Emotional harm carries no repair estimate and no X-ray, only the plaintiff's own account of how daily life changed, and defendants routinely contest it. John C. Shea, Tara A. Enix, and Edward E. Scher worked the matter from Richmond, while Andrea Carver handled it from the firm's Petersburg office. The team built its presentation around medical illustrations and demonstrative exhibits prepared by ALCAR, Inc., Medical Management Resources, and AMICUS Visual Solutions, visuals meant to make an internal, invisible injury something jurors could follow.

The lawyers also ran focus groups. Mock jurors gave the team a read on how ordinary people would weigh the emotional component, the part of the claim that carried no fixed dollar figure. That feedback shaped how the case was framed heading into negotiations.

The case never reached a verdict. The parties went through two separate mediations spread over roughly six months, with retired Judge Michael C. Allen and Michael Harman serving as mediators. The first session did not close the gap. The negotiations continued, and the two sessions together produced a settlement of $2,650,000.

Because the matter resolved by agreement rather than by a jury award, there was no verdict to be reduced or remitted on appeal. The figure the parties agreed to was final.

Virginia Lawyers Weekly listed the result among its Million-Dollar-Plus Settlements of 2024. The firm counted it among five top million-dollar-plus settlements it secured in Virginia that year.