Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog

An Ohio lawyer has been suspended for two year years suspension for submitting “false and fraudulent” time sheets. Theoretically possible for the workaholic? Sure. But three of her bills reflecting more than 24 hours of work in one day, once billing 90.3 hours of work during a 96 hour period. In another, she billed 139.5 hours of work during a 144 hour period.

Although the number of lawyers who pad their bills is probably on the downside in 2010 as more companies are looking for more ways to trim legal budget fat, lawyers who bill by the hour have been padding their bills since Emperor Claudius lifted the ban on lawyers billing more than 2,000 years ago. Little known fact: Abraham Lincoln was a notorious bill padder, sometimes charging clients five times the number of hours taken to complete the task. There was scores of client complaints about Lincoln about his billing. (Before you pass this information along, consider the possibility that I'm completely making this up.)

Anyway, while most lawyers don't, the fact that one lawyer was caught ridiculously padding her bills in not actually a Page 1 story. But I found the defense to the crime particularly interesting: it was the the law school's failure to teach law firm management.

The first reason why this is so ridiculous is obvious. As Carolyn Elefant points out, if you can't figure out that you are not allowed to bill more than 24 hours in a day, a law school class is not going to set you straight.

But, in my opinion, the whole idea of Law Firm Management as a course is an exercise in futility. You have make believe lawyers pretend to run a make believe law firm with make believe problems. Students just are not going to really digest the problem. It is like suggesting the guy that won your fantasy football league three years in a row would make a great general manager.

Continue reading "How to Teach Lawyers Not to Steal" »

What do the players in the World Series of Poker have in common with jurors? Poker faces. Unless you really (really, really) have a jury, they usually don't give that many tells.

Of course, now we have a cheat sheet with Facebook. Apparently, a Michigan juror pronounced a criminal defendant guilty while the trial was still, ah, ongoing. Everyone is so enamored with social media and its intersection with how it impacts jurors and lawsuits, so these stories make big news. But just how many times has this happened where it never leaked out? I'm pretty sure I could confess to a felony on Facebook and no one would really be paying that much attention.

While we are talking about Facebook, please join our Miller & Zois fan page.

We have a big race in Anne Arundel County for Circuit Court that is getting surprisingly little attention in the media. Alison Asti is challenging sitting Circuit Court Judges Laura Kiessling and Ronald Jarashow.

The problem with this election is that most people - I think most people - make a reasonably informed vote when voting for president, Congress, state legislatures and other elected offices in this Country. But I don't think the majority of people, even Anne Arundel County lawyers, are in a position to make an informed call on judges. Our law firm tries a lot of personal injury cases and we have not tried a case in front of either Judge Kiessling or Judge Jarashow. So there are probably 11 lawyers in Maryland who are in a position to have been in front of these judges and know Ms. Asti well enough to thin slice who would be the best judge. And I wouldn't even defer to those 11 people.

What are the issues in the campaign? No one is suggesting the other side is not qualified to be a judge. (Actually, I'm making that part up because it makes my argument flow better. I think proponents of the sitting judges have argued that while Ms. Asti may be a fine lawyer, you need to have been a trial lawyer to be an effective judge. I'm not unmindful of this point. Having supported Justice Kagan, I feel a little hypocritical suggesting drawing the line between an appellate judge and a trial judge for who needs to have been a trial lawyer.)

Assuming all of the candidates are qualified, what are we deciding in this election? Who would be the fairest of the fair? How do you debate that? And if you can't have a debate, should you have an election? But we have one. So I think the best rule for voting in judicial elections is to vote for the incumbent judges unless you have a compelling reason not to do so. Important point: compelling should not be defined as a sentence you did not like in a criminal case when you really do not even know the facts of the case, how the witness presented, and so forth.

Anyway, the sitting judges are good judges and good people by reputation. Judge Kiessling and Judge Jarashow both made it past the Anne Arundel County Judicial Nominating Commission and were nominated by Governor O'Malley. Even Bob Ehrlich would admit under sodium pentothal that Governor O'Malley has been apolitical in the judicial nomination process and has appointed good judges to the bench. The Republicans in the Maryland Senate have certainly thought so. (Dear Republicans: It is okay to concede your opponent has not been awful at everything. It actually enhances your credibility. I promise.)

It is not that I do not think Ms. Asti would not make a good judge. I also do not oppose her right to run. She is availing herself to the political process that is currently in place (even if I disagree with the premise of electing judges). But she has not suggested a reason why these well thought of judges should be removed from the bench and I think that is because there isn't one.

Accordingly, my law firm made a donation yesterday to the campaign of the sitting judges Laura Kiessling and Ronald Jarashow. More importantly, they have earned the highly sought after, much anticipated and ballyhooed Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog endorsement.

• Post from 2006 on why I disagree with judicial elections in Maryland
• Sitting judges Facebook page
• Allison Asti's election Facebook page
• Washington Post editorial from February on why contested elections in Maryland are a bad idea
• Testimony to the Maryland Senate on judicial elections

The Tennessee Titans have filed a lawsuit against University of Southern California and coach Lane Kiffin for "maliciously" luring away assistant running backs coach Kennedy Pola. The lawsuit claims the hire disrupted planning and "potential loss of confidence by players."

The first complex legal question here is clear: do you really need an assistant running back coach? Wait, that's not a legal question. Okay, how was it "malicious"? Was the purpose of the hire to destroy the Titans by hiring their assistant running back coach? What if they had gone after their head running back coach? Can you imagine the inhumanity?

Look, we all get it. Lane Kiffin is doing a lot of things to damage his reputation. But what kind of message do you send when you file a lawsuit - against a university - for hiring a coach when the real thing you are mad about is that Kiffin did not "ask" for permission to hire the coach?

I complained last week about how celebrity lawsuits distort the public's perception of what personal injury lawyers do. All these lawyers want to do, the public complains, is sue people. Actually, the goal is to reach a settlement before filing a lawsuit. How much effort did the Tennessee Titans make to settle this lawsuit. They filed a lawsuit about 20 minutes after they felt aggrieved.

Off the top of my head, I have no idea who the owner of the Titans is. But would you be surprised if he had the pro big business view that trial lawyers are destroying America? I don't know that this is his view, but let's pretend that it is for a minute because it would surprise no one. (I remember him giving the fans the finger last year. So anything is possible.)

My point, by now, is obvious: everyone hates what lawyers do until they feel like they have been wronged. But I think it is crazy to be pro-plaintiff or pro-defendant. Every individual case should be judged on the merits and the totality of the circumstances.

Here, unless there are facts we don't understand - which I concede is entirely possible although unlikely - this case by the Titans against USC is just ridiculous. Not every wrong should be remedied by a lawsuit.

Also, the Titans should do their fans a favor. Any player who has "lost confidence" as a result of the loss of the assistant running back coach should be cut immediately. I don't care if his name is Chris Johnson. Cut him.

Serious personal injury clients in accident and malpractice cases often understandable get put behind the 8 ball in their personal finances. This means every now and again I find myself dealing with a collection lawyer.

The New York Times takes an honest look at the practice of debt collection. Apparently, and you see this from a few hospitals in Maryland, debt collecting attorneys have decided the best way to collect on a debt is to put the case in suit, a practice that is wreaking havoc on the courts because the volume of computer generated complaints is so high.

The other problem in dealing with debt collecting lawyers, as the article points out, is that many practice law like they are running a factory. You ever try playing phone tag with a debt collection lawyer? It is awful. The lawyer I was calling had no way to get a live receptionist and, incredibly, his message said if we don't call you back, call us again. Another tactic to get the general public feeling cozy about lawyers, I guess. Moreover, professional courtesy seems to take a backseat. These lawyers tend to put calls from personal injury lawyers behind random cold calls in the call back food chain.

Believe me, I know I'm overgeneralizing. And I also understand the importance of having legal mechanisms available to support those collecting debts. The "Man", as John Bratt's refers to big business in his blog post earlier this week, has just as much right to the judicial system as the little guy does. But I think we need to make sure that the consumer is getting adequate protection under the law, too. As the article points out, many of these debt claims are brought without any meaningful proof of a debt but the consumer and the consumer does not have the resources or the sophistication to challenge the creditors claim.

I don't provide any answers today, I'm just point out the problem. Tomorrow's post will try to solve many of the world's problems, I'm sure.

I wrote earlier today about my concerns about celebrity lawsuits and how they distort the public perception of merits of a typical personal injury case and of lawyers generally.

By coincidence, Jay Hancock underscores this problem in the Baltimore Sun today, poking more than a little fun at a Maryland law firm that sent out a "look who I sued" press release that ended up sounding like a press release for the musician the law firm was suing (Ne-Yo).

There is another moral to this story: if you are going to put yourself out there, think about how you are doing it. Did anyone at this firm read this press release before it went out? Now, if you Google the law firm which, by all accounts is a fine law firm, you get this article third. That's not good PR.

(I'm not naming the firm because I don't want this blog post to be on the list.)

• John Bratt's commentary

Since the Supreme Court found in 1977 in Bates v. State Bar of Arizona that lawyers have a right to advertise on the grounds of the public has a right to information from lawyers, the general public has been accustomed to awful commercials from lawyers, mostly personal injury accident lawyers replete with sirens and crashing cars.

Still, relatively few lawyers had the resources to put on television commercials. Almost all were personal injury lawyers because the numbers just didn't work for domestic or criminal lawyers because there is no possibility of a large payday in those cases. The malpractice and accident lawyers that were advertising on television were making a substantial investment in branding their law firm.

So awfulness of personal injury lawyer commercials was regulated more by fundamental economics than the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct. Advertising lawyers did not risk their investment and their brand by going too far over the top.

Then came YouTube. Now every lawyer with a camera has an opportunity to put their television commercial into the stream of commerce. Unlike the marketing titans, they have no reputation to lose. So it is the wild west.

Overlawyered provides an embedded link today to one of the worst. It is not a personal injury lawyer but a domestic lawyer ad. It is like a Saturday Night Live sketch you and I would put together on the fly if we were trying to mock lawyer advertisements.

Every time one of these videos gets made, a tort reform cadet gets his wings.

I can't stop working to listen to the Elena Kagan confirmation hearing. But there has been so much talk of the questions Elena Kagan will get, it is hard not to check in.

NPR is live blogging through Tom Goldstein's SCOTUSblog. I love the NPR disclaimer on this: "While SCOTUSblog has relationships with the law firms of Akin Gump and Howe & Russell, it covers the work of the Supreme Court as an impartial, journalistic entity." I think I'll start putting this kind of disclaimer on the Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog. To make the Chinese Wall particularly high, I'll change my shoes and my socks to transition from personal injury lawyer to impartial journalist. You won't see the change but you will have to just trust me.

Getting that off my chest, Goldstein's live blog is worth reading. Also worth reading, for a very different reason, is David Lat and Elie Mystal's live blog of the confirmation hearings on Above the Law. I'm not sure who is doing most of the writing but this is quality stuff. I can't imagine Above the Law is a high paying gig. If I'm any judge of talent, both of these writers will leave Above the Law for greener pastures in the next year. (Then again, I would have bet the farm against Brett Favre last season.)

The U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed a ridiculous lawsuit against the New England Patriots and Bill Belichick by a season ticket holder/lawyer who brought a lawsuit on behalf of "all Jets fans" who had bought tickets to Jets-Patriots games in New Jersey during Belichick's tenure.

The basis for the suit? The Patriots/Belichick's conduct during the infamous Spygate game between the Patriots and the New York Jets in September 2007 where the Patriots coaches were caught using a video camera to steal the Jets signals.

The court found that the Plaintiffs possessed "nothing more than a contractual right to a seat from which to watch an NFL game between the Jets and the Patriots...."

President Obama is whittling down his list of Supreme Court candidates and will have a choice this month. But the face of the federal courts is changing under President Obama. I'm hijacking the Baltimore Sun's article on Monday but changing the focus to the subject of this blog: personal injury cases. Oh, and yeah, I completely disagree with the entire premise of the article.

The focus is on the replacement for Justice John Paul Stevens, giving President Obama the opportunity to select his second Supreme Court judge this month. But the impact of a new Supreme Court judge on personal injury cases will most likely be relatively insignificant, at least in the short term. Riegel v. Medtronic was a 8-1 blowout. Wyeth v. Levine was decided by a comfortable enough 6-3 margin. A new judge is not going to change the court's rulings in Bell Atlantic v. Twombly and Iqbal v. Ashcroft. Regardless of whether Elena Kagan or Glenn Beck is chosen, I don't think there is going to be a significant difference in how the Supreme Court deals with product liability cases.

For personal injury lawyers, the greater concern than who is on the Supreme Court is who the trial judge is. Clearly, in accident, malpractice and product liability cases, the trial judge you have really does matter, particularly on Daubert issues and other evidentiary rulings. Judges have a lot of discretion on what comes into evidence at trial. Let's face it: President Obama's judges are more likely to allow plaintiffs to admit evidence than judges appointed by President Bush. Obviously, this overgeneralizes but the point is true.

The Sun suggests that Obama is changing the face of the federal judiciary. But, in terms of new sitting judges, President Obama has not gotten very far. He has only appointed 24 judges: one Supreme Court justice, nine appellate judges, and 14 trial judges. Not exactly the major makeover that is the premise of the Baltimore Sun article.

Continue reading "President Obama, Judges, and Personal Injury Cases" »

A Houston personal injury lawyer has threatened the city of Houston, a concession company and Continental Airlines, claiming it is their fault he left his Polo coat behind at an airport food court.

Normally, when a lawyer is under attack for doing something stupid, foolish, insane or [fill in your own adjective here], he is identified as a personal injury lawyer when he is really not. But, alas, I Googled the guy and he certainly a personal injury lawyer.

Well, maybe this is like the McDonald's case where the facts are taken completely out of context. But, alas, his demand letter is on line and it is exactly what it appears to be: he's mad because no one grabbed the coat that he left.

In that case, I have another defense. If a congressman tickles his staffer, no one assumes that everyone in Congress is a tickler. Why is everyone so quick to judge one personal injury lawyer on what another personal injury lawyer does? Why is the whole profession implicated?

The answer to my question is simple: that is the way it is. And while no one hates Congress because of their propensity to tickle staffers, people do hate personal injury attorneys because of the perception they are trying to bully their way into money to which they are not entitled (which is rarely, but sometimes, true). So sometimes you have to take your lumps and move on.

I summarized two new Court of Appeals of Maryland opinions elsewhere last week: Benway v. Maryland Port Authority and Darby v. Marley Cooling . Benway deals with a procedural issue with respect to when a party can file a summary judgment motion. Darby deals with an interesting Maryland workers' compensation issue (that I did not fully understand because I have never handled a workers' comp claim).

I think this is the first time on this blog I ever used "Court of Appeals of Maryland" instead of "Maryland Court of Appeals." The former is technically correct but it just sounds strange to me. I'm heading back to Maryland Court of Appeals.

The Illinois Supreme Court made big news nationally when it issued its much awaited opinion in Lebron v. Gottlieb Memorial Hospital yesterday, The court overturned in a 4-2 ruling the Illinois five-year-old medical malpractice cap on damages because limiting compensation for injured malpractice victims for pain and suffering violated the Illinois constitution.

Specifically, the court found that the Illinois malpractice cap violated the “separation of powers” clause because imposing a cap imposes on a decision that should be made not by legislatures but by juries.

The underlying lawsuit involves a catastrophic birth injury. Plaintiff’s lawyers alleged the infant Plaintiff’s severe cerebral palsy was caused by the negligence of the hospital, her obstetrician, and a nurse.

The appellate path taken in this case was atypical. Plaintiff sought summary judgment on the issue of whether the cap applied, which the trial court granted before the case was tried. Procedurally, this is odd and the dissenting opinion took exception to the idea of deciding this case without a verdict. I understand the dissent’s thinking on this. But the parties at least are best served taking this path because they both know how the law is going to be applied. This makes the case much easier to settle and settle fairly whichever direction the court takes. After the trial court’s ruling, the Defendants appealed directly to the Illinois Supreme Court.

Essentially, the court found that a cap on damages is a legislative remittitur and the failure to leave the issue of remittitur to the court which decides the issue on a case-by-case basis represents legislative intrusion on the powers vested in the court by the Illinois constitution.

One favorite part of the opinion for me was the way the court responded to the defendant’s argument that other states had damage caps: “That ‘everybody is doing it’ is hardly a litmus test for the constitutionality of the statute.”

Continue reading "Illinois Malpractice Cap Ruled Unconstitutional" »

Guy breaks into your house. Your are terrified that harm will come to you, your spouse or your children. Yet something holds you back from taking decisive action to protect your family.. the threat of a civil lawsuit by the burglar.

To stop this insanity, House Bill 207 has been introduced by House Delegate William J. Frank from Baltimore County, to raise the negligence bar for people who use force against a home or office burglar to make them immune from civil liability unless they acted “with malice or gross negligence.”

Naturally, Maryland courts are clogged with frivolous lawsuits by personal injury lawyers representing criminals who were injured breaking into homes of the innocent. Just ask John H. Josselyn who is with the Associated Gun Clubs of Baltimore:

Far too many attorneys are willing to initiate a civil action on behalf of criminals who allege that the victim, who was acting legally in self-defense, did something that violated the rights of the attacker. Defending a civil action, even when it is a frivolous lawsuit, involves great expense.

Let's take a breath and break this quote down and get our arms around whether there is even a portion of it that is not demonstrably false on its face.

Continue reading "Gross Negligence Standard for Homeowners Defending Their Homes" »

Yesterday, The Maryland Court of Appeals decided Prince George's County v. Longtin. The Plaintiff in this case was arrested for murdering his wife. When the real bad guy was found, Plaintiff brought a claim against Prince George’s County, alleging false imprisonment and, more significantly I think, that police officers engaged in a pattern or practice of “unconstitutional and unlawful detention and interrogation” and “excessive force and brutality." One fact that had to stand out to the jury to lend credibility to his claim: the police ignored DNA evidence that ruled out the Plaintiff, keeping him in jail another six months. The jury bought in, awarding over $6 million in damages, which included over a $1 million in punitive damages collectively against the police officers. Why don’t you remember reading about any of this? The murder was over 10 years ago. The wheels of justice sometimes cruise casually.

The jury appeal of this case is easy to see. It is transcendently awful enough to have your wife murdered. But being wrongfully accused when the evidence should have sent police in another direction and then being physically and mentally brutalized by police? It makes anyone’s top 5 nightmares list. These police officers crossed lines that would make Jimmy McNulty blush.

Still, there are limits to the ‘it could just as easily have been me” feeling you might be having reading this post. Plaintiff admitted to having a verbal and physical altercation with his wife just hours before her body was found. After the altercation, he got a knife and ran after her. Later, she turns up missing and murdered. So while I fault the police for a lot based on these reported facts, jumping to conclusions about Plaintiff guilt is not one of them. I mean, what are the chances?

That’s more on the facts than I planned but it is just an incredible story. Anyway, Prince George’s County argued – apparently without shame – from the beginning that that the Local Government Tort Claims act barred his claim because he did not provide adequate notice. Plaintiff responded with the complex legal theory of “how on earth can you expect me to give you notice when you have wrongfully imprisoned me for more than 180 days?”

The Maryland Court of Special Appeals agreed, finding that an “ordinary prudent person” in Plaintiff’s situation could not have given notice in 180 days. I’m dumbing down a complex opinion, but I think that is an adequate summary.

What would have saved everyone a lot of time in this case and furthered justice in countless others would be if the Maryland legislature would simply abolish the Local Government Tort Claims and the Maryland Tort Claims Act. What exactly is the wisdom in treating government different from you and I when it comes to the statute of limitations? If we all agree it is fair that a local government can be sued in actions sounding in tort in the same manner and extent that anyone can be sued, why change the limitations period? I think the idea of governmental immunity is illogical and outdated but at least I understand the rationale. Altering the statute of limitations is a crude and illogical way to treat citizens in substantially similar situations in dissimilar ways.

Interesting historical footnote that may be of interest only to me: Prince George’s County was the first county in Maryland to waive sovereign immunity in 1970.

You can read the full opinion here.

Years ago, a personal injury lawyer in Southern California named Mitch Jackson started blogging. Mitch had great content and was posting frequently. One day I looked up and he disappeared, joining the list of talented people burned on blogging.

Mitch sent me an email this week telling me that he was up and blogging again. Check him out on Trial Lawyer Tips. The blog is directed to trial lawyers and has a very clear, conversational voice.

Jurors in Florida heard arguments yesterday in a lawsuit filed by the family of a 16 year-old boy who died while training at the IMG Academy’s International Performance Institute. According to the wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family's lawyer, the sports academy should have performed a thorough enough physical examination before allowing the child to participate in strenuous exercise. The lawsuit also claims that the school ignored the fact that the child's father died of a heart condition at 33, a fact the lawsuit claims should have prompted further review of the child's health.

The death of a 16 year-old boy is just an unspeakably awful tragedy. Also bear in mind the caveat that the basis for my opinions is reading a newspaper article - an awful way to evaluate evidence.

That said, I'd have a hard time finding liability if I were a juror under the "school should have given the child a physical" theory. A 16 year-old boy's parents should know that playing basketball is exercising intensely. Parents should not be able to pass that duty onto a school or anyone. I don't blame his mother or anyone else for not getting the boy a physical. It is easy to see how someone could misinterpret the health of a handsome boy who looks very physically fit (the article has a picture). But I'm not sure blaming the school is fair, either.

The Drug and Device Law Blog has an interesting post on how long lawyers stick with blogging. The short version: most lawyers fail miserably at blogging over the long haul.

Lawyers blog for a lot of different reasons, usually related, at least in part, to furthering their professional career. There are three paths. The road most traveled is the, "Hey, there was an auto accident on I-97 last night." There are about 1000 of these sites written by or for personal injury lawyers who have nothing to add to the conversation but are trying to attract clients directly. These blogs come and go and they are both painful to read and, I'm sure, to write. If you are trying to attract personal injury clients like this, you are almost certainly going to fail unless you have been doing it for years (Google likes websites that have been around for a while).

You know you are reading one of these blogs because when you are finished, you have learned absolutely nothing except that the lawyer wants personal injury clients. These are almost exclusively personal injury lawyers. The patent lawyer approach of "Hey, Microsoft got a patent yesterday" is clearly not going to work. The personal injury lawyers' "there was an accident last night" pitch will also fail, but it is just not as obvious to the blogger.

The second path is the purist. There is no hint of marketing or sensitivity to Google search terms - just pure facts, analysis and opinion. Jim Beck and Mark Herrmann's Drug and Device Law Blog is an excellent example, as is Eric Turkewitz's New York Injury Law Blog. These bloggers certainly enhance their professional reputations with their blog. This is a very effective route, but there is one problem with this path: you actually have to have something to say that would be of interest to someone else.

The third avenue is the hybrid where you write to be educational, informative and interesting, but you are not above an occasional pitch to consumers, and if the possibility avails itself, you use a Google friend keyword you would not use if Google was not keeping score of these things.

Continue reading "Personal Injury Lawyer Blogs: Thoughts on Blogging" »

I'm pleased to report that Laura Zois and John Bratt obtained this morning a $1,063,000 verdict in a truck accident case in Baltimore City after a four day trial. John blogs about the trial here.

• Wisconsin Supreme Court begins to lean to the right, notwithstanding last week’s informed consent holding.
• $11 million malpractice settlement in Chicago (Dallas Fort Worth Injury Lawyer).
• Advice on coordinating PIP and workers’ compensation in third party car accident cases.
• The argument that early settlements in medical malpractice cases – even before a lawsuit is filed – would make more economic sense for malpractice insurance companies. Obviously, I like the idea but I wonder whether this study factored in the “deterrent effect.” One reason why every medical malpractice case is a war is to send a clear message to medical malpractice lawyers: every malpractice case you file is going to be a war that is going to cost you money. An annoying practice to be sure but is it a good business model? I have no idea.
• Eric Turkewitz on trying to solve the ambulance chaser problem in New York. I don’t think we have a lot of this in Maryland but we certainly do in the District of Columbia.
• Neurontin lawsuit ends bizarrely.
• Thoughts on handling personal injury claims against State Farm.
• Yaz/Yasmin Lawsuits are consolidated in an MDL.
• TortsProf (roundup of personal injury links).
• Risk of texting while driving from the Maryland Accident Lawyer Blog, Rob Sachs with Shrager, Spivey & Sachs, and the Reeves Law Group Blog. I really don’t think the risk is 23 times greater. That is an insane number. But the larger point should not be obscured: Crowley and Gates go much better together than texting and driving.
• Robert Kreisman writes in his Chicago Personal Injury Lawyer Blog advice for all of us on another means to decrease medical malpractice lawsuits: the insistence on clear communication with your doctor. I think bad automobile drivers get in more accidents that are not their fault than good drivers; good drivers see other drivers' negligence but are paying careful enough attention to avoid the accident. The same is true for medical malpractice: bad patients are more at risk for malpractice than good patients.
• Palm Beach focuses on the problem of teen driving. The LaBovick Injury Law Blog underscores the tragic facts: there is a 40% higher risk of fatalities for drivers age 16-19. What exactly do we do about this? Set the driving age at 20? This seems impractical, to be sure. But so is losing 5,000 teenagers a year to fatal car accidents. I wish I had the answer.
• O.J. Simpson wants to be released pending his appeal because he poses no flight risk. The problem is that it is safe to assume that every justice on the Nevada Supreme Court watched the Bronco chase live, even with a riveting Knicks-Pacers game on as competition. So I suggest betting against a release in your office pool.
• Overlawyered (August 3rd roundup).
• New York Personal Injury Law Blog (roundup of personal injury links).
• Scott Greenfield’s Blawg Review.