Virginia Injury Lawyer Blog

The waiver. Everyone knows it. We’ve all signed one. If you want to engage in an activity (little league, summer camp, high school sports or triathlon, for example), chances are someone is going to want you to sign away all your rights.

In 1890, the Virginia Supreme Court addressed the issue of waivers in Johnson’s Adm’x v. Richmond and Danville R.R. Co., 86 Va. 975 (1890) and ruled that such waivers were not valid. In quintessential 19th century language, the Court reasoned that “to hold that it was competent for one party to put the other parties to the contract at the mercy of its own misconduct…can never be lawfully done where an enlightened system of jurisprudence prevails. Public policy forbids it, and contracts against public policy are void.
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The parents of a Virginia Tech suicide victim want to know why school officials didn’t tell them about emails the school received detailing their son’s suicidal behaviors. In our lawsuit filed in Fairfax County Circuit Court, the family of Daniel Kim is charging Virginia Tech and its administrators with gross negligence for failing to follow the university’s published protocols for dealing with suicide warnings.

The Reston family is also asking the university to assist in the passage of legislation, to be called The Daniel Kim Act, which will require all public universities in the state to notify parents when a threat to the safety of their children is present.

“Daniel Kim’s death was preventable. If Virginia Tech had followed its own published protocols for dealing with a suicide emergency, Daniel would still be alive today,” said Kim’s attorney Gary Brooks Mims. “Further, if the university had notified Mr. Kim of the emails declaring an emergency, he would have been by his son’s side within hours and sought appropriate and urgent medical care.”
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Washingtonian Magazine’s December 2009 issue lists partner Gary Brooks Mims
as one of the top personal injury lawyers in the metropolitan region. The magazine annually reviews the legal profession and lists “Washington’s best legal minds” in 29 categories. The resulting list represents the top 1 percent of the area’s attorneys. Mims has practiced law since 1980 and is a partner with Sickels, Frei & Mims, one of the top personal injury law firms in Virginia.

All of the partners of Frei and Mims were recently selected by their peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America® 2010 (Copyright 2009 by Woodward/White, Inc., of Aiken, S.C.).

Gary B. Mims was named in the category of Medical Malpractice. Mims and Steven Frei were named in the category of Personal Injury Litigation.

Since its inception in 1983, Best Lawyers has become universally regarded as the definitive guide to legal excellence. Because Best Lawyers is based on an exhaustive peer-review survey in which more than 32,000 leading attorneys cast almost two million votes on the legal abilities of other lawyers in their specialties, and because lawyers are not required or allowed to pay a fee to be listed, inclusion in Best Lawyers is considered a singular honor. Corporate Counsel magazine has called Best Lawyers “the most respected referral list of attorneys in practice.”

Today Show reporter Lisa Myers reports that illegal pool drains are still in use in thousands of pools across the country. The drains were outlawed by the Graeme Baker Pool/Spa Safety Act, which grew out of the lawsuit brought by Sickels, Frei and Mims against pool/spa drain manufacturers.

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/vp/31759011#31759011

A new pool/spa safety law, designed to prevent the children from being entrapped by drains, is now in effect. Congress in 2007 passed the Virginia Graeme Baker Pool and Spa Safety Act, named after former Secretary of State James Baker’s granddaughter, who became trapped in a hot-tub drain and drowned in 2002. The law, which grew out of the lawsuit brought by Sickels, Frei and Mims against the spa and drain manufacturer, set new standards for drain covers for public pools and spas, or hot tubs. The standards are optional for existing residential pools. This law requires installation of anti-entrapment drain covers and other systems as outlined in the Act.

To learn more, visit the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s website: http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml09/09065.html

Attorney Gary B. Mims is listed among Virginia’s Super Lawyers 2009 and DC Super Lawyers 2009. Law and Politics publishes Super Lawyers in more than 35 states. According to the publisher the list includes lawyers who have been selected by their peers as the top 5 percent in the state. The roster is based upon a multi-step process that begins with ballots to active lawyers and is backed by independent candidate research.

A Caroline County Virginia jury recently awarded $2.7 million and over $500,000 in pre-judgment interest for the victim of a serious auto collision who suffered post traumatic seizure disorder. Partner Steve Frei successfully argued that the 53 year old man sustained trauma to his head when the van in which he was a passenger was rear-ended. Unfortunately physicians have been unable to control the victim’s seizures with medication. The victim’s injuries have cost him his livelihood and severely impacted his quality of life.