A Richmond-based appeals court sided with the family of a deceased patient in a medical malpractice suit after finding the lower court misapplied the law, and math, in determining if she had received proper treatment. 

A district court judge found transfer delays of West Virginia resident Edna McNeely failed to meet the 25% “chance of survival” threshold required under state law. Judge Allison Jones Rushing said on behalf of a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit panel, however, that the lower court misapplied the threshold and that the threshold should only be part of the standard used to decide the case.