Our Successes

 

A teenager driving a Ford Expedition came upon slow-moving traffic on  a Leesburg road and swerved over the double yellow line into the  opposite lane of traffic.  The head-on collision was violent enough to  kill the driver, leaving the passenger, his wife, our client, widowed.  The  surviving wife hired me to represent her in a wrongful death suit,  which successfully concluded with a substantial settlement with the  insurance carrier.  One of the issues causing a greater settlement award  was our research to determine that the teenage driver was driving on a  restricted license at the time of the accident due to past drug  convictions.  Our wrongful death complaint raised the issue of negligent  entrustment to bring the parents into the litigation, adding their  umbrella policy into the negotiations, increasing the settlement award  to $1.5 million dollars. 

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Slip and Fall

 I helped defend a woman who slipped on spilled water from the flower  store in a local grocery store, causing her to fall and break her knee.   The client recovered all of her medical expenses, her pain and  suffering, and her aggravation expenses associated with her fall.  The  key to this case was the pre-trial deposition of a grocery employee, who  indicated that she had observed teenagers carrying flowers out of the  store, while dripping water as they went.  The knowledge of this  employee was attributed to the employer's failure to warn its shoppers  of the potential hazard, under the doctrine of respondiat superior

Rape

 As a criminal defense lawyer, I obtained an acquittal in a jury rape  case involving a man falsely accused by his girlfriend.  The trial  lasted 5 days, resulting in an acquittal for the client, helping him  avoid a potential life sentence. 


 In another rape case, I was able to have the prosecutor dismiss the  charge against my client after a preliminary hearing, in which I was  able to cross-examine the complaining wife regarding her false  allegations against her husband.  Had the case gone to trial, my client  was facing 5 years to life in prison. 

Dog Cases

 In a dog bite and a dog running-at-large cases, tried in the same week, I  received back-to-back acquittals calling several key witnesses to  substantiate to the Court that the dogs in question were not dangerous  nor running at large.  If found guilty, the clients were facing 1 year  in jail and the dogs would have needed to be muzzled for their remaining  lives. 


 In a dog torture case, I represented a client at the preliminary hearing  of this felony case, where the Court determined that my client had  presented more persuasive evidence in his favor than not.  This resulted  in the case being dismissed.  In addition, I negotiated successfully  with the Commonwealth Attorney not to direct indict my client to the  higher Court after the preliminary hearing.  Had my client been found  guilty in the higher Court, he would have potentially received a jail  sentence of up to 5 years. 

Possession of Marijuana Case

 A past case involving a possession of marijuana charge was also  dismissed on a motion to suppress.  An improper stop was made by a  police officer, who alleged in court that he had smelled marijuana  coming from my client’s vehicle while he was sitting at a cross street.   He alleged that he could smell this drug coming from my client’s moving  vehicle, which was traveling under the speed limit on a rainy day.  The  Court dismissed the case, not believing the police officer’s testimony  that he could smell marijuana from a moving vehicle, in the rain, whose  windows were up at the time.  Had the suppression motion not been  granted, my client faced a year in jail, a drug rehabilitation program,  the suspension of his driving privileges for six months, and fines.  

Robbery Case

 In a first degree robbery case of a local bank, our office was able to  successfully negotiate a significant reduction for a client in this  criminal case.  His sentence was reduced to eight years from a potential  life sentence, based upon work by our office, done with the help of the  family, to negotiate with the Commonwealth Attorney’s Office in  locating other co-conspirators who were involved in this and other past  robberies.  

DUI Cases Involving Moving Vehicles

 Two recent cases have been dismissed on motions to suppress filed by  this office to prevent incriminating evidence being admitted in Court  after a traffic stop.  The suppression motions were made on the basis  that the respective traffic stops were made by the police officers  without probable cause to suspect that a traffic or criminal violation  had occurred in derogation of the clients’ Fourth Amendment  Constitutional Rights against unreasonable searches and seizures.  In  one case, the video dash cam from the police officer’s vehicle was used  by us to show that the Defendant’s vehicle was in front of another car  and could not be observed directly by the police officer.  In the other  case, a video dash cam showed that the Defendant’s vehicle, while  drifting, never crossed the designated traffic line.