Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog

It is Christmas for the Maryland Personal Injury Lawyer Blog.... Jury Verdict Research just published a new Maryland specific study on the median compensation awards for car, truck and motorcycle accidents. In cases that go to trial, the median recovery was $11,328. Only in 1% of the cases did the jury award more than $500,000. Plaintiffs prevailed and received a recovery in 74% of the motor vehicle accident cases that went to trial in Maryland.

This data is from Maryland verdicts from 2000-2006. The data has remained relatively unchanged. From 1998-2004, the median recovery was $11,277, $51 dollars less than the latest study.

While I'm excited to see a new study on Maryland auto accident verdicts because I love looking at statistics on jury verdicts, I think the data is fairly useless. As I have written before, Maryland's jury verdicts are distorted by the defense lawyers who routinely "bump up" what should be small court claims to Circuit Court. In other words, if an auto accident lawyer in Maryland files on small claim for more than $10,000 but less than $30,000 (which is the new District Court maximum as of today), the insurance company's lawyers may remove the case to Circuit Court, which generally requires a jury trial and almost invariably leads to greater expenses from both parties. This practice distorts the jury awards. I read Metro Jury Verdicts every month and half of the reported personal injury cases in Baltimore are nickel and dime cases that never should go in front of a jury. So I think this data is interesting and useless all at the same time.