2025 Year in Review: The DMV Injury-Law Decisions That Mattered

Washington DC
Written By Posey Lebowitz PLLC

Some years in the law drift. 2025 did not. From its first week to its final weeks, this was a year that reshaped injury law in all three of our jurisdictions — expanding some rights, contracting others, and closing one of the longest-running sagas in DC tort law. As is our year-end tradition, here is what mattered, and why.

The year at a glance

Date Development Jurisdiction
Jan. 2 Bon Secours-DePaul v. Rogakos-Russell: $2M wrongful death verdict affirmed; Dead Man's Statute tamed Virginia
Jan. 16 Al-Saray v. Furr: $7M brain-injury verdict reinstated; circumstantial causation vindicated Virginia
Feb. 3 Supreme Court of Maryland upholds the Child Victims Act, 4–3 Maryland
Apr. 22 / June 1 HB 1378 signed; CVA damages caps cut for suits filed on or after June 1 Maryland
July 1 Med mal cap rises to $2.70M for new acts of malpractice Virginia
Nov. 20 Whiteru v. WMATA certified question answered: a duty of reasonable aid to the known-imperiled DC

Virginia: a January to remember

The Supreme Court of Virginia opened the year with back-to-back decisions protecting jury verdicts. In Rogakos-Russell (January 2), the Court affirmed a $2 million wrongful death verdict for the family of an 86-year-old priest who died after a fall from an unlocked hospital stretcher — holding that the Dead Man's Statute did not bar the decedent's own account of his fall, relayed through disinterested witnesses. Two weeks later, in Al-Saray (January 16), the Court reinstated a $7 million traumatic brain injury verdict the Court of Appeals had discarded as "speculative," reaffirming that circumstantial evidence need only make causation reasonable — not exclude every alternative — and that appellate courts must view the record in the verdict winner's favor. Together, the pair sent an unmistakable message: in Virginia, verdicts are to be respected, not re-tried on appeal. And on July 1, the medical malpractice cap took its scheduled step up to $2.70 million for new acts of malpractice.

Maryland: the Child Victims Act's dramatic year

No storyline in the region matched Maryland's. On February 3, the Supreme Court of Maryland held, 4–3, that the Child Victims Act's revival of previously time-barred abuse claims is constitutional — rejecting the argument that the old age-38 deadline was a statute of repose and green-lighting survivors' cases statewide. Then, within weeks, the General Assembly — facing enormous state exposure from juvenile detention claims — passed HB 1378, cutting the Act's noneconomic damages caps from $1.5 million to $700,000 (private defendants) and from $890,000 to $400,000 (government) for suits filed on or after June 1. The result was a spring filing surge of historic proportions and a new legal landscape in which the filing date, not just the merits, shapes a survivor's recovery. The elimination of any filing deadline survives untouched — and constitutional challenges to the cap rollback were signaled from the day it was signed.

DC: the Whiteru finale

On November 20, the D.C. Court of Appeals answered the question certified by the D.C. Circuit and ended a twelve-year litigation saga: a Metro passenger who involuntarily falls into a non-public area may technically become a trespasser, but a carrier or property owner that knows or has reason to know of an injured, trapped, or imperiled person owes a duty of ordinary care and a duty of reasonable affirmative aid. Only truly undiscovered trespassers are left to the old willful-wanton rule. It is the capstone of a line of decisions that began when the D.C. Circuit held in 2022 that contributory negligence does not excuse a carrier's failure to aid — and it will shape premises and transit death cases in the District for a generation.

What this means for injured people across the DMV

Three themes run through 2025. First, verdicts got stronger protection — Virginia's high court twice refused to let appellate second-guessing undo what juries decided. Second, legislatures can give and take away — Maryland's cap rollback is a pointed reminder that rights on paper have dollar figures attached, and that timing can be everything. Third, duties of basic humanity are expanding — Whiteru confirms that property owners in the District must act when they have reason to know someone lies hurt and helpless.

Every one of these developments began with an injured person and a family who refused to accept that nothing could be done. That is how injury law moves — one case, one client, one verdict at a time. We are grateful, as always, to be part of that work.

If you or a loved one has been hurt, call Posey Lebowitz at (202) 524-0123 or send us a message for a free consultation.

Part of our DMV case law archive, compiled in 2026 to reflect the archive of some of the most important decisions in injury law.

Sources

Posey Lebowitz PLLC
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