Virginia personal injury lawyer Christopher Guedri represented Ella Cousins, who was a 64-year-old gainfully employed college graduate and a long time resident of Gloucester County. On August 11, 2006, she was shopping at the Food Lion in the Gloucester Courthouse area. While pushing her shopping cart down the main aisle, she was struck by a stock cart of freight being pushed in her direction by a Food Lion employee.
The collision knocked her to the ground and she struck her head on the concrete floor. She developed a large subdural hematoma and sustained a massive traumatic brain injury. Ms. Cousins was left with profound cognitive and intellectual loss to a degree that she by all accounts needs 24-hour care and supervision around the clock. For the last six and a half years this care has been provided by her daughter and granddaughter because the family could not afford the $200,000 annual cost of professional assistance.
This college educated woman who experts testified had normal intelligence prior to the accident now has an IQ of 69 and is profoundly impaired in all realms of cognitive function.
The case was initially tried in January 2010. Food Lion admitted that it’s employee was negligent but asserted that Ms. Cousins should have seen the cart and gotten out of the way and claimed therefore that she had contributory negligence. The trial resulted in a defense verdict with the jury concluding that she was in part responsible for the accident.
Mr. Guedri appealed the case to the Virginia Supreme Court and a writ was granted. The Supreme Court of Virginia reversed the cases and remanded it for a new trial.
The retrial was held in Gloucester County January 29 – 31, 2013 and resulted in a $5,000,000 verdict in favor of Ms. Cousins. This is believed to tie the largest jury verdict of any case tried in this county.
