Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports that Allstate Insurance Co. will now fairly compensate thousands of Washington drivers for out-of-pocket medical expenses in a class action settlement. In 2005, Allstate was sued for arbitrarily limiting PIP payments for car accident victims. Allstate used Colossus to determine the average pay rate for a procedure in the geographical area and then paid out only 85 percent of what it found to be the average amount. To be clear, they did not pay what they thought was fair; they paid 85% of what they thought was fair. In an unrelated story, Allstate takes 100% of the premiums from their insured. This practice underscores the insurance company motto of taking premiums and denying claims.

If any of this sounds familiar to you, I blogged last week about a former Allstate employee’s testimony that revealed Allstate’s alleged systematic bad faith in a first party bad faith case in Kentucky.

I also blogged back in May about the newly strengthened first party bad faith bill that passed in Washington, which has much sharper teeth that Maryland’s new first party bad faith law, allowing for three times the actual damages incurred plus attorneys’ fees and expenses. I cannot help but wonder if that precipitated settlement in this Washington bad faith case.

For an update, on Judge Jay Spechler, click here.

The Daily Business Review last week wrote an unbelievable article about a battle between an insurance company and its policyholders. This has been the landscape since Chinese and Babylonian traders started issuing insurance about two thousand years ago. But, in this story, the insurance company has expanded its war to include Florida judges.

United Automobile Insurance Company's lawyers are seeking to remove a Florida judge from all Personal Injury Protection (PIP) accident cases involving the insurance company, citing the judge’s alleged bias.

The Florida-based carrier's attorneys have moved to disqualify Broward County Court Judge Jay from “any and all cases involving United Automobile Insurance Company as a litigant.” United alleges that Judge Spechler routinely displays “pre-disposition, prejudice and bias” against its attorneys. In an interview, Judge Spechler, who has served on the bench for 19 years, estimated that, incredibly, two thirds of his cases are PIP disputes with this insurance company.

This is not United Auto's first attack on a Florida judge. Last month, United Auto’s lawyers also moved to disqualify Miami-Dade County Court Judge Jacqueline Schwartz from sitting on PIP cases.

Apparently, United Auto is well known among Florida personal injury lawyers for their insurance attorneys' aggressive fight against its own policyholders making PIP claims. In 2004, Florida's Office of Insurance Regulation fined United Auto $75,000 for fighting 96 percent of its policyholders’ claims, because if the carrier really discovered that much fraud, it was negligent in not reporting it to the state.

Apparently, the gloves are off, and I mean off. United general counsel Charles Grimsley is saying that judges have not treated United fairly in the courtroom, and that he believed judges were being “paid off,” although he admitted he could not prove it. Later, Mr. Grimsley backed away from his allegation by saying he does not think there is "any money changing hands.” United Auto apparently then took out advertisements stating that Mr. Grimsely's statement “does not remotely reflect the opinion of United Automobile Insurance or any of its defense attorneys.”

Ninety-six percent of claims are fraudulent? This is beyond incredible. United Auto is basically declaring war on its policyholders in an effort to discourage claims. United Auto is the leading auto insurance company in Florida. Martin Luther King said that the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice. I have to think that this arc will soon bend towards the justice of United Auto losing its market share in Florida.

More and more, personal injury lawyers in Maryland auto accident and truck accident cases are doing battle over the ‘independent’ medical examination. Attorneys argue over everything from who should conduct the examination, how far the plaintiff should have drive for the examination, to more substantive issues such as the examining doctor’s financial records. However, one thing that is occasionally overlooked by plaintiff’s personal injury lawyers is the fact that their client may have already had such a medical examination before they even became involved in the case if the case involves an uninsured motorist or PIP coverage was utilized.

Most insurance policies have a provision whereby the insurance company can ask for the policyholder to attend a medical examination with a physician of its choosing before any payments are made to the insured. This is can be used as a condition precedent to any insured receiving PIP benefits or uninsured motorist benefits.

The Maryland personal injury lawyer must be careful in cases where PIP has already been paid or where uninsured motorist coverage applies. Often times, the insurance adjuster has a copy of the report complied by the insurance company’s doctor months or even years before it must be disclosed to the plaintiff’s lawyer (for example, before suit has been filed or before discovery answers are due).

These “condition precedent” type independent medical examinations give the insurance company additional discovery that they would not be entitled to once the case has gone to court, meaning more than one opportunity for a favorable report. Therefore, it is always a good idea for the plaintiff’s accident lawyer to subpoena not only the claim file for the case or suit they are involved in, but also the file of any previous adjuster handling a PIP or other file. Our lawyers at Miller & Zois have found that if you get these old files, sometimes the lawyer will get a copy of an independent examination that was favorable to your client, but was not divulged in discovery since it was “not part of the claim file” of your case. It is still discoverable material under Maryland law and could help make your case.

The Maryland Court of Appeals ruled this year in Nasseri v. GEICO that the driver of a taxicab that did not have PIP coverage who was injured in an auto accident had PIP coverage under the taxi cab driver's own personal motor vehicle policy for his injuries.

In this case, Plaintiff's taxicab collided with another car in Montgomery County. At the time of the accident, Plaintiff maintained a separate policy of auto insurance with GEICO for his personal car. The GEICO policy provided for PIP coverage in the event of personal injury resulting from an auto accident. Plaintiff made a claim for PIP benefits to GEICO, who denied PIP coverage. The District Court found in favor of GEICO and the Montgomery County Circuit Court, hearing the case de novo, affirmed the judgment in favor of GEICO.

Plaintiff attorney, who should be commended for putting this much effort into such a small case, appealed, arguing that GEICO's policy exclusion was not permitted by Section 19-505 of the Insurance Article of the Maryland Code and thus was invalid and unenforceable. Plaintiff also argued that Plaintiff was injured in a motor vehicle accident not because he was in a taxi but because the other vehicle was not a taxi cab. The Maryland Court of Appeals, in an unanimous opinion written by Judge Eldridge, agreed and reversed the lower court's opinion, specifically rejecting GEICO's argument that Plaintiff was not entitled to coverage because the Maryland Insurance Article excludes a "taxicab" from the definition of "motor vehicle."

In Maryland, the owners of taxicabs are not required to maintain the minimum PIP coverage on cabs. Taxicabs are indirectly excluded under Section 19-505 because taxicabs are not considered "motor vehicles" under Maryland's statutory scheme for PIP, as defined in Section 19-501(B)(2). The same holds true in Maryland for buses.

While this case will not have a big impact on personal injury law in Maryland, auto accident lawyers in Maryland are pleased that the Maryland Court of Appeals remains committed to interpreting the insurance code liberally to provide injured victims in auto accidents with at least the minimum coverage requirements under Maryland law.