Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog

The Maryland Court of Appeals tackled a piece of one of the new vexing issues our courts face: dealing with social media. Most of the legal opinions circulating around involve discovery of social media such as Facebook and Twitter in civil cases. The court's opinion in Griffin v. State deals with a different issue: determining the appropriate way to authenticate at trial electronically stored information printed from a social networking site. This is a Cecil County criminal case but the same logic would apply to a civil case so it is a case personal injury lawyers really should read.

In this Cecil County case, Defendant's girlfriend apparently had a My Space name of “Sistasouljah” who put an entry on her page that read: "FREE BOOZY!!!! JUST REMEMBER SNITCHES GET STITCHES!! U KNOW WHO YOU ARE!!”. Without going into the details of the case, it suffices to say that this did not reflect well on the Defendant's case.

For reasons that are unclear, the prosecutor did not try to authenticate this social media entry through the Defendant's girlfriend although she did testify. Instead, they tried to use a police officer who, on the stand, put two and two together.

A divided Maryland Court of Appeals disagreed that the officer can authenticate a social media posting because the identity of who generated the profile is unknown. In other words, the court's problem is that just because I put up a Facebook profile claiming I'm Charlie Sheen, it does not mean that I'm Charlie Sheen.

Judge Harrell appreciated the concern of the technical "heebie-jeebies" (yeah, he used that phrase and defined it by footnote) but believes that you can add two and two together under these facts because the heebie-jeebie concerns go to the weight to be given the evidence by the trier of fact. If the post was not the girlfriend's post, the Defendant should feel free to argue that, in Judge Harrell's opinion.

Continue reading "New Maryland Social Media Evidence Opinion" »

Eric Turkewitz writes about another Facebook discovery opinion in New York. Boring. Wake me up when this blog post is over. What? Blackmail? Go on. Nudity? Really!?!

You can find the details here.

The Maryland Court of Appeals decided today GEICO v. Comer, another appellate case that dives into the Serbonain Bog of whether uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage kicks in when trying to get coverage in an accident under an insurance policy for a vehicle that was not in the accident that caused the injuries.

Plaintiff was in an awful motorcycle accident in Calvert County. The Defendant cut in front of the Plaintiff who suffered a myriad of injuries, as is typically the case with motorcycle accidents, including a fractured femur and an open head injury. He incurred over $200,000 in medical bills and suffered permanent injuries. Everyone agrees: awful case.

Continue reading "New Maryland Uninsured Motorist Case" »

Dan Snyder is easy to mock. I will probably do it in this post. So when he filed his lawsuit against the Washington City Paper for defamation, I instinctively rolled my eyes. So did you. We all did.

Continue reading "In Defense of Dan Snyder" »

I've never filed a motion to enforce a settlement and I don't think anyone in my firm has. I think as far as I've come is threating to file a motion but it never comes to that.

That streak may not survive as insurance companies continue to overreact to their risk of Medicare or Medicare coming back to haunt them after a settlement. Sure, there are theoretical potential penalties if Medicare and/or Medicaid liens are not dealt with out of the settlement funds. I don't have a problem with insurance companies trying to reduce their small risk. But some insurance adjusters handling claims in Maryland are cementing their reputation of being unreasonable by taking extreme positions on what post-settlement hoops plaintiffs' lawyers must jump though to get a check.

Torts Talk, a defense lawyer oriented blog I just stumbled upon, talks about how a Pennsylvania judge dealt with this issue. Plaintiff's attorney filed a Motion to Enforce a Settlement when the insurance company refused to issue a settlement check after a car accident settlement until the Plaintiff produced documentation confirming the status of any Medicare/Medicaid lien.

Continue reading "Motion to Enforce Settlement: Medicare Liens" »

Our lawyers are reviewing Topamax birth defect lawsuits in Maryland.

Topamax causes an increased risk of oral birth defects - most prolifically cleft lips and cleft palates - in children's mothers took Topamax while pregnant. That's not plaintiffs' lawyers spinning: the FDA is saying this.

Topamax lawsuits argue that the manufacturer either knew or turned a blind eye to the fact that Topamax caused these birth defects.

If your child has a birth defect and the child's mother was taking Topamax, visit our Topamax lawsuit information center and learn more about Topamax birth defect claims. Our lawyers will provide to you at no cost a free evaluation of your potential Topamax lawsuit in Maryland. Call 800-553-6000 or get a on-line consultation.

It is earning season on Wall Street. Time to increase margins.

Here's one tip: if you have a relatively meaningless deposition, you don't need to pay for two lawyers to attend.

John T. Sly and Christina N. Billiet from Waranch & Brown write an article for the Maryland Defense Counsel newsletter about how to best attack plaintiffs' experts out of the gate. One key tactic they advise is trying to get two depositions of the plaintiffs' medical expert. Interestingly, they name drop the judges they say have approved this tactic and ordered plaintiffs' experts to sit through two depositions: Judges Leo E. Green and Thomas P. Smith, both in Prince George's County.

Continue reading "Attacking Plaintiffs' Malpractice Experts" »

It kills me how so many folks hold up the New England Journal of Medicine as the gold standard for anything and everything until it speaks up about preemption or medical malpractice reform. Then they become hacks for... well, nobody, really. Just hacks.

The NEJM put out a new article that looked at traditional malpractice tort reform:

Our review yielded two main conclusions. First, evaluations of traditional tort reforms have remained heavily focused on metrics related to liability costs, with most care-related measures receiving relatively short shrift. Second, the evidence reveals that, with few exceptions, traditional tort reforms have not proved to provide many improvements in these liability metrics.

So we have decided as a society in many jurisdictions, including Maryland, to limit how its citizen juries can award and deprive malpractice victims in some cases what we would all agree to be the fair value of the injuries or death because the true value of the case exceeds the malpractice cap. Oh, yeah, we also look the other way on the Constitution's due process and equal protection requirements.

Continue reading "Malpractice Reform: New England Journal of Medicine" »

The 10th Circuit yesterday decided a Ford F-150 product defect case in which it reversed the trial court's entry of summary judgment but sent the case back down to the District Court. I love it when courts do that.

The issue in this wrongful death case was whether plaintiffs' expert could flip his deposition testimony after getting boxed into a causation corner. The 10th Circuit said they could not, adopting a line from the District Court that I really like: "[Plaintiffs] treated the deposition as a 'take home examination.'"

The issue in this case is similar to the issue that was addressed in Pittman v. Atlantic Realty, a lead paint case I won on summary judgment for the defendant before Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge David B. Mitchell that was reversed by the Maryland Court of Appeals.

I started my argument in Pittman with this line about how the Plaintiffs were delivering their case the way Nathaniel Hawthorne delivered his novels; sending out one chapter at a time. I thought it was so clever. Boy, I was stupid. (And I don't even think I ever completed the full Cliff Notes of a Hawthorne novel.) I could have saved 10 pages of transcript by saying, "Plaintiffs treated this case like a take home deposition." Still, I won.

Continue reading "Sham Affidavits: New 10th Circuit Opinion" »

The Baltimore Injury Lawyer Blog (John Bratt) writes a post on how not to object at a deposition (and how to handle inappropriate objections).

The Tennessee Daily News Journal has an editorial on proposed medical malpractice reform in Tennessee. The paper takes what I think is the right side in opposing a cap on economic damages.

I read these editorials all around the country. No one is saying anything new anymore. There are no new studies of note, there are no new angles to approach the arguments. I can't remember the last time I have read something innovative on the topic of malpractice tort reform. (I don't have anything, either.) Everyone just repeats what has been said time and time again elsewhere.

The Maryland Rules Committee has submitted its report on contributory negligence. I have not read it yet, I'm heading to Baltimore Zoo on a school field trip. I did look to see if the report made a recommendation on contrib/comparative. It did not.

It it just me or does every get excited seeing everyone's crazy aunts and uncles come out of the basement and try to top each other with a more ridiculous, insane proposals for dealing with frivolous lawsuits? The Overlawyered commenters are out and about after reports of a lawsuit over the right to wear unbelievably awful t-shirts to public school.

Can I play too? We should execute anyone who we suspect is thinking of a filing a frivolous lawsuit. There is a precedent for this. Remember the Minority Report?

I actually agree with the implied premise of the post that people shouldn't be filing lawsuits defending the right of kids to wear incredibly offensive t-shirts to a public school. (Particularly if the girl's parents are essentially making her wear the shirt. Good golly.) Truly, it is a beyond insane lawsuit. It should be renounced. (I guess. We could also just look away I suppose. We have 300 million people in this county. Do we have to report on every random idiot who burns the Koran?)

But the feeding frenzy that follows after the reports of these outlier cases operates under the assumption that frivolous lawsuits are the rule rather than the exception. The "free market" that I'm sure the commenters idolize takes care of lawyers who are recidivist filers of frivolous lawsuits: it puts them out of business.

Continue reading "Excitement About Frivolous Lawsuits" »

The parents of a 13 year-old girl that committed suicide have filed a lawsuit against a school system alleging the school should have been able to prevent her suicide.

Teenagers have been taking their own lives as long as history can remember. This tragedy has a modern twist. The girl did something that lots of young people are doing now: sexting. She texted a topless photo of herself to a boy. You know what happened. Teenage boys are not known for their discretion. Then the media picks up the story. Now, they don't name names but anyone within 5 miles of the girl knows who it is. All of this culminates in the girl's suicide. The parents' wrongful death lawsuit alleges the school did not do enough to prevent the girl from committing suicide.

Continue reading "Sexting/Suicide Leads to Lawsuit" »

I settled a case with GEICO. They send me - personally - a Hold Harmless and Indemnification Agreement holding them harmless from any claims for medical liens, medical bills, and pretty much any claim that could be brought of any kind before they will send out a settlement check. Here is a copy of what GEICO wanted me to sign. You will see it makes no sense. My client and I are on the release but there is just one signature line.

I told the adjuster, "Look, we already settled the case. Now you are putting conditions on a new party, namely me. That seems reasonable enough. But are you willing to personally throw $100 into the settlement yourself? That is my new condition."

I thought this was funny and illustrative. The GEICO claims adjuster? Less so. Instead, he starts rolling off a list of lawyers who have signed this hold harmless agreement. Literally, it was like a who's who list of "prolific" Maryland accident lawyers who have been around forever and I believe have never tried a serious personal injury case in their lives. Just funny he would be name dropping those lawyers.

Continue reading "GEICO Just Kills Me" »

I read somewhere recently that making Top Ten lists really attracts readers. Regrettably, I don't know ten things about fighting medical liens that I think you don't know. But I know a few.

I've been working harder and harder trying to better understand the ins and outs of subrogation liens that arise in personal injury cases. Certainly, it some larger cases we farm out lien work to firms that focus exclusively on resolving lien issues. But there are so many basic things I think personal injury lawyers need to appreciate about lien issues. Anyway, here is my Top Five list:

1. The mere fact that it is an ERISA lien does not automatically mean that the lien cannot be reduced for attorneys' fees. Subrogation and reimbursement rights for ERISA insurance plans only exist if the language of the plan says they do. You have to actually read the plan to know.

2. Social Security does not have a right to subrogation of survivor benefits.

3. In Maryland, at least, a workers' comp lien in a wrongful death/survival action applies only to the economic loss the client receives (figuring out this number for settlement purposes can be a challenge) and the medical bills if any were incurred.

4. There is no such thing as a Medicare lien. Medicare has a right of subrogation but not a lien. The difference is mostly semantic but Medicare can bring its own independent action for payment regardless of what the personal injury victim does. There is also a crazier example I can imagine that I doubt has ever happened. Wife is the at-fault driver in car accident in which her husband was a passenger. Husband refuses to sue the wife for his injuries but Medicare does.

5. Medicaid may only recover liens for medical costs. There is no lien for money recovered that is not for medical costs, although, again, in cases that settle, trying to apportion this is rarely a smooth process.

Those are my five. If you have any more than you want to add, leave a comment below.

The Maryland General Assembly 2011 session is over. The amount of great bills passed that will really serve the citizens of Maryland was just incredible. (I know, I know... perhaps I exaggerate a bit. The alcohol tax was a good idea, it just should have been higher.) One bill passed that I support and I think is interesting. Local municipalities may now use cameras to catch motorists speeding past stopped school buses. Violators will get a ticket with a penalty of up to a $250 fine, but no points on their driving records. Montgomery County has had cameras in place for a while but they were just giving out warning tickets. This bill has some teeth, albeit little baby teeth without any points attached.

This bill was precipitated in part by a Maryland State Department of Education study that found that thousands of drivers in the state are passing school buses with their stop arms extended and their red lights flashing. A total of 7,028 violations were recorded on a single day last month. Nearly 4,000 (3,997) of those motorists were oncoming drivers who ignored the stop arm, 2,665 drivers moved past a stopped bus on the bus driver’s side of the vehicle, and 366 drivers passed a stopped bus on the door side, right where you would expect a child to be walking. Baltimore County drivers are the worst offenders, followed by Montgomery County, Baltimore City, Anne Arundel and Prince George’s.

(Now keep in mind, all of this data comes from school bus drivers who, as a breed, think we are all idiots and don't belong on the road. So let's say they are exaggerating by a factor of 10. It is still a staggering number.)

Continue reading "New School Bus Camera Law in Maryland" »

You have to blog. Really just hire someone to do it.

Check out the quality you get back when you do this. You can read this entire post of just read the last paragraph.

Then I turn to the recent post which talks about why not to use homemade penile extenders. I'm sure "homemade" is an important caveat to the warning.

Before a client executes a release or signs a check for a property damage claim, I want to review the release if they have a potential personal injury claim from the accident. Particularly in uninsured motorist cases but this paranoia extends to every type of accident case.

Why? I don't want the insurance company to try to pull a fast one and slip in a full release under the guise of a property damage release for the client's car.

In years past, after looking at approximately one zillion property damage releases, the Oliver Stone conspiracy has never come to pass. Insurance companies have always been straight with me. Until this week...

Continue reading "Property Damage Claims Releases" »

The Maryland Court of Special Appeals today considered the issue of the circumstances under which a landlord may be liable in dog bite injury cases. This case involved a tenant in Towson who was breeding pit bulls. The CSA found that Baltimore County Circuit Court Judge Timothy J. Martin erred in granting the landlord summary judgment. Especially assigned Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge Ronald B. Rubin wrote a 7 page dissent. Ultimately, I think the Maryland Court of Appeals will see this one.

The court went through two leading Maryland dog bite cases involving dogs named Trouble and Rampage. I would think everyone would have notice of propensity with dogs with these names. When I'm nearing a pit bull named Rampage, I'm thinking it's a matter of time before I feel the first bite.

The Plaintiffs' lawyers in this case were Ober, Kaler, Grimes, & Shriver, a firm that usually finds itself on the other side of the "v". The defendants were represented by State Farm's in-house counsel (Cliff Patterson, from H. Barritt Peterson, Jr. & Associates, who is a good lawyer.)

Continue reading "Landlord Liability in Dog Bite Cases" »

Jury Verdict Research provides a study on median compensatory award for circulatory system injuries:

• Heart attacks: $443,750
• Gallbladder injuries: 259,117
• Liver injuries: $221,185
• Spleen injuries: $40,342
• Overall: $225,000