The Library

Gentry Locke for the Defendant Fairfax County Circuit Court Gentry Locke attorneys successfully defended a large, residential real estate brokerage firm in a breach of contract case.  The plaintiff, a North Carolina consulting firm, designed new commission plans for our client’s thousands of real estate agents in the mid-Atlantic region. The plaintiff contended that it was owed $1.4 million in cumulative incentive payments based on improvement to the brokerage’s “company dollar” percentage, or profit margin, over the five-year period following adoption of the plans. However, under a plain reading of the contract and the brokerage’s financial performance, no incentive payments were […]

Gentry Locke for the Defense Circuit Court for the County of Richmond Gentry Locke successfully represented property owners in a zoning dispute. The County’s zoning administrator approved plans for the property owners to build a two-story garage on their property, and the zoning administrator certified that the plans fully complied with the County’s Zoning Ordinance. However, unbeknownst to the property owners, the zoning administrator did not review the zoning application or the building plans. In good faith reliance on the zoning administrator’s certification of compliance with the Zoning Ordinance, the property owners built the garage. Several months after construction was […]

Gentry Locke for the Plaintiff Fairfax County Circuit Court Karen Ebersole was 55 years old when a right middle cerebral artery bifurcation aneurysm was incidentally found on MRI.  She was a candidate for both neurosurgical and neuro-endovascular intervention.  She ultimately chose to pursue a neuro-endovascular “coiling” procedure to be performed by the defendant doctor.  Ironically, the defendant doctor was one of the partners at Fairfax Radiological Consultants, Ms. Ebersole’s long-time employer.  The procedure was performed on May 6, 2013 under general anesthesia.  The paralytic drug rocuronium was used for paralysis at the beginning of the procedure to facilitate intubation.  The […]

Gentry Locke for the Plaintiff Gentry Locke represented a two-year-old girl and her mother’s estate. The girl was riding with her mother and father when their car collided with another car. There was evidence that both drivers had been drinking and one was speeding. Tragically, both of the girl’s parents died in the crash, as well as the driver of the other car. The girl suffered injuries as did the two passengers in the other car. The estate of the driver of the other car and his insurance company blamed the girl’s mother and grandmother for allowing the girl to ride with her father […]

Gentry Locke for the Plaintiff Pulaski County Circuit Court The driver of a truck on I-81 in Pulaski County rear-ended our client’s car when traffic had come to a stop. He was unable to stop in time as a result of not paying attention to traffic conditions. As a result of his inattentive driving, our client suffered injuries to her neck and back. Attorneys for the truck driver claimed that her injuries were the result of extensive pre-existing conditions and were not caused by the crash. Despite the dispute over the cause of the injuries, the defense settled the case for […]

Gentry Locke for the Defense Montgomery County Circuit Court, then Supreme Court of Virginia Gentry Locke defended two subcontractors, along with their performance bond surety companies, against a claim by a general contractor related to a construction project at Virginia Tech. The project was completed in the late 1990s. Virginia Tech pursued a claim for defective work against the general contractor and resolved that dispute for a $3 million settlement. The general contractor then pursued a claim for breach of contract and indemnification against several subcontractors and sureties. The Supreme Court of Virginia affirmed the trial court’s ruling that the statute […]

Our client was neurologically intact when he was admitted for evaluation to an acute care hospital for possibly unstable cervical fractures. An in-hospital fall caused tetraplegia (a type of paralysis) and a traumatic brain injury. Our attorneys were prepared to present evidence showing that the assigned nurses deviated from the standard of care by not identifying our client as a high falls risk, and by not putting in place high falls risk interventions and injury precautions, including a bed alarm set at the correct sensitivity level.

Gentry Locke for the Plaintiff County Circuit Court located in northern Virginia Gentry Locke represented a woman in her early 40s who underwent a wisdom tooth removal performed by a general dentist. She suffered a permanent nerve injury during the extraction, which she contended resulted from the dentist failing to refer her to an oral surgeon for the procedure. Our client’s experts contended that the removal was too complex for a general dentist to undertake and that the standard of care required referral to an expert in the field of extractions. Had such a referral been made, the tooth would have […]

Gentry Locke for the Defense U.S. District Court, Western District, Roanoke Division, VA The plaintiff sued her former employer, a non-profit, alleging sex discrimination, a hostile work environment, constructive discharge, and retaliation. All claims except for the hostile work environment were dismissed prior to trial. Our client, the employer, denied that harassment occurred and maintained that they were not notified of any harassment until shortly before the employee quit. After a three-day trial, the jury found that the plaintiff had been subjected to a hostile work environment by co-workers but not by the supervisor. The jury also agreed that the employer […]