Howard County traffic accident police reports where the injuries are not fatal are now available on-line. Only motor vehicle accident police reports will be made available on-line. To get the report, you have to pay $5 and certify that you were involved in the accident or you are an accident attorney or insurance company representing someone involved.
You can get more information here.
If you polled personal injury lawyers who handle car accident cases, most would chose Allstate as the "worst of the worst" among insurance companies to deal with on accident claims.
Personally, while I would not put Allstate at the top of my list of insurance companies I want to draw, I certainly would not put them last either. First, I think Allstate claims adjusters respect good lawyers and good law firms and I think their offers reflect the quality of the lawyers involved in the case. Second, if you are patient and willing to go back and forth, I think Allstate will give you less of a low ball final offer than many other insurance companies do. I also think Allstate claims adjusters, to their credit, are less likely to fold just because a lawsuit is filed. Allstate is going to pay more - as any insurance company is - as the case gets closer to trial but Allstate does not have the reflexive "settlement failed, suit has been filed, let's now make a decent offer" response that is becoming the new SOP. This trend seems to be in vogue. A number of insurance companies, most notably GEICO, Progressive, and State Farm (if you are dealing with Team 22 or Team 23 in Maryland), make accident attorneys file a lawsuit in order to receive a reasonable offer. Allstate claims adjusters are more likely to come up with something reasonable to settle the claim before suit is filed. That does not mean our lawyers don't have to file a lot of lawsuits in Allstate cases. But Allstate typically makes it a little tougher call for our clients to make.
The bad rap on Allstate is in part because they are big. Insurance companies are inherently reviled and there is more of Allstate to hate than many other insurance companies: Allstate claims adjusters receive six million - six million! - car accident, property and bodily injury claims a year, paying out $15 billion in claims. Allstate has a strong market share in Maryland in car insurance and other third party personal injury claims insurance.
As a result of being big, Allstate also get the press. Famously, Allstate claims practices infamously changed in the 90s when Allstate hired the consulting giant McKinsey & Co. to overhaul its claims practices. In a PR screw-up that I bet has cost Allstate millions of dollars, McKinsey used boxing gloves in a slide presentation to Allstate claims representatives to symbolize the Allstate philosophy. Another piece of advice McKinsey gave, which really resonated with claimants after the advice was implemented, is stalling those claims where the victim did not rollover on settlement. This advice was given 15 years ago but Allstate still uses it in far too many cases today. Allstate claims adjusters commonly continue to stall and delay to hope to wear down third party claims and often uninsured motorist claims made by its' own insureds. But, let's be realistic: every insurance company does this. You just notice Allstate a little more because they are the elephant in the room.
Continue reading "Allstate Claims" »
The Maryland Daily Record published a three part series over the last month on mediation in Maryland personal injury cases, a piece I wrote with the Honorable Clifton J. Gordy . You can read the articles on-line but you have to be a subscriber to the Daily Record to read the entire article.
I stumbled on an interesting Chicago Law Review article today by Eric Posner (Judge Richard Posner's son) and Cass Sunstein (now with the Obama administration). I like Sunstein's views on a number of issues, including animal rights.
The subject article is how the legal system assigns money damages to the loss of human life in wrongful death cases with an eye towards creating greater uniformity. The authors approach this question like it was a mathematical equation to be solved. For grief, the authors conclude that $500,000 is a good starting place, suggesting this formula as the paradigm to determine compensation in wrongful death cases:
To derive a willingness to pay (WTP) to avoid grief from a spouse's death, one would need to (1) determine the average length of time that the grief persists (for example, until remarriage); (2) find an equivalent happiness difference in an area of life that has been reliably monetized (for example, willingness to pay to avoid disease or depression); (3) convert this difference into annual units; and (4) multiply (1) by (3).
I understand the goal of uniformity and I even understand the formula. The problem is homogenizing the equation for everyone. Values vary because juries vary but also because facts vary wildly from case to case. Moreover, the formula is artificially low because it uses how much you will spend to avoid a loss to determine how you value the loss. For example, if you are willing to pay $5 to avoid a 1/100,000 risk of death to your spouse, than the loss of your spouse is worth $500,000.
Continue reading "Wrongful Death Compensation: How Much?" »
Paul Luvera discusses a tough issue for Plaintiff's lawyers: do you clue the jury in during your opening statement as to how much you are going to ask for in closing? I struggle with this and often opt for a middle ground. I lay out the foundation of what I'm going to ask for: medical bills, wages, and the formula I think is appropriate (x per day for the rest of her life). This way, I'm getting them used to the idea without having to spit out a number without any evidence.
As Paul points out, a one size fits all rule is difficult because each case depends on different facts. One critical question has to be considered: is the cap an issue? If what you have is clearly a cap case and minimal or no economic damages, you can dial back a bit on the damages argument which might help you avoid the risk of losing credibility. Because every time you ask for money - which is what a plaintiffs' lawyer does by definition - you do lose some measure of credibility with a jury.
One of the issues in this post - raising the damage amount in voir dire - is not of much interest to Maryland personal injury lawyers because our voir dire is so ridiculously limited.
Paul also points out that David Ball feels pretty strongly about putting up a number in opening. Which is reason enough to consider it in every case.
Yesterday, the Maryland Daily Record published the first of a three part series I wrote with retired Judge Clifton J. Gordy (now a mediator and arbitrator) on mediation in serious personal injury and wrongful death claims. The article is for both plaintiff and defense lawyers looking to make mediations as productive as possible. Take a look at yesterday's article and look in coming editions for the final two parts.
A wrongful death lawsuit has been filed against a Chattanooga, Tennessee bar after a car accident killed a woman just a few days before Christmas. The case is an interesting twist on the classic dram shop case. The suit alleges that the bar gave its employees free alcohol and allowed one man to leave the bar obviously intoxicated. The employee stayed at the bar and drank "free alcohol" after his shift ended at 3 a.m. Around 7:00 a.m., the defendant struck and killed a pedestrian, an employee on her way to work at Unum Insurance. The defendant, stand up guy that he apparently is, fled the scene and tried to fake a carjacking. Apparently this is an insurmountable stunt to pull off when you are drunk.
What really adds teeth to the Plaintiff's wrongful death lawsuit is a city ordinance prohibiting bar workers from drinking where they work, even when off duty. Clearly, the violation of the ordinance was a factor in causing this woman’s death. If the case goes to trial, there are going to be arguments by defense lawyers about the purpose and intent of the statute and whether this was the harm that the ordinance was trying to avoid. But I would suspect it was at least a purpose, if not the purpose, of the statute.
Maryland has rejected dram shop and social host liability in DWI accident claims. Going against the grain as a parent and lawyer who handles accident cases, I have believed and written in the past that I oppose dram shop liability claims in Maryland.
I’m not so sure anymore. I would really like to see data as to the number of wrongful deaths that occur in Maryland from DWI/DUI accidents where the person became intoxicated at a bar, or even at a bar where they are employed. Of course, the more salient question is one on which we will never get a definitive answer: how many deaths have occurred as the result of a server in a bar or restaurant who knows a patron (or employee) is drunk but does nothing to stop them?
Continue reading "Dram Shop in Maryland" »
Note: a special welcome to Point of Law readers. I disagree with many of the philosophical views presented at Point of Law and Overlawyered. Then why do I read both of these blogs every day? Because they are informative, well presented posts that make me occasionally question my own views. I hope to have you as a reader of the Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog and I hope my blog does for you what Point of Law and Overlawyered does for me.
Insurance companies hate being named in an uninsured motorist case. Why? Because unlike most car accident trials, if the jury knows an insurance company is paying the damages, jurors become less concerned that the defendant is footing the bill themselves. Jurors intuitively expect there is insurance available to cover the verdict but they are never quite sure. On several occasions, I have had jurors ask me after trial if the defendant has to pay the verdict. “That nice Mr. Smith does not have to pay this personally, does he?”
In Maryland, the law is clear that in a straight uninsured motorist case without the tort defendant participating in the trial, the insurance company may be named. The definitive case on this is King v. State Farm. In that case, a pedestrian Plaintiff appealed an unsatisfactory jury verdict in Baltimore City in an underinsured motorist case where the tort defendant had offered their policy limits (the verdict was less than the underlying policy). The Maryland Court of Special Appeals reversed because the trial judge did not allow the Plaintiff to identify the fact that the defendant was an insurance company.
The unknown issue in Maryland is whether the underinsurance carrier can be named if the defendant driver who caused the accident remains as a defendant in an an uninsured or underinsured motorist case. I think the answer to the question is pretty obvious because the exact same logic and rationale largely applies.
One of our accident lawyers, however, recently lost this argument on a case that went to verdict. The judge bought the argument that mentioning the underinsurance carrier might lead the jury to think that there must be a lot of insurance which might lead them to award more than they should. Is this possible? Sure. But it seems equally possible the jury would feel sorry for the defendant with so little insurance. Besides, what separates an insurance company from any other large defendant who the jury also knows has a lot of money?
My opinion: when you balance this uncertainty against the insanity of having lawyers representing unidentified parties, it seems like a pretty easy call. It seems to me that the legal system artificially keeps enough from jurors as it is.
Nora Freeman Engstrom writes an amazing article for the Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics titled Run-of-the-Mill Justice. She writes about settlement mill law firms, writing with a 60 Minutes investigative journalism style that names names, calling out a few law firms she has labeled as settlement mill firms. Engstrom characterizes these firms as "characterized by their high claim volume, aggressive advertising, significant delegation to non-attorneys, entrepreneurial focus, and quick resolution of claims, typically without initiation of suit."
There are about 10 different facets of the article I find interesting. I found of particular interest the idea that settlement mills create a "one size fits all" (my words, not hers) kind of justice. Under this system, individualized pain and suffering does not exist for settlement purposes.
What matters, then, for car accident settlement purposes in non-serious injury cases is the amount of the medical bills, what the injuries are, and how much damage was done to the vehicles. Plaintiffs' car accident lawyers have blamed this on a paradigm shift in the thinking of insurance companies in the 90s, This article argues, quite convincingly, that many plaintiffs' lawyers are unindicted co-conspirators in this system.
The author overlooks that settlement mill auto accident law firms are just one contributing cause. The opposite extreme is equally to blame, lawyers who have very small practices and no real marketing presence that do that exact same thing. Take the case, send in the medical records and bills, and settle the case for whatever you can. There are tons of local lawyers parading as lawyers suited to handle car accident claims. The bigger problem? These same lawyers get serious injury accident cases, typically car accidents, where the victim's financial future is at stake. These lawyers take the case because they can't resist and the results are often disastrous. Settlement mill law firms often have the good sense to refer these cases out, realizing they are asking for a legal malpractice lawsuit. Often, the guy with the office on the corner that does wills, criminal, domestic, and everything else under the sun does not have this same sense.
Of course, it is a mistake to label every solo general practitioner as incompetent to handle large auto accident cases just as it is a mistake to assume every firm that runs massive amounts of television commercials as settlement mills.
What is a good plaintiffs' auto accident lawyer to do if he does not want to get caught up in this mess that has been created? If you have a client who wants to settle their auto accident claim quickly and at any price, you are going to be a victim of this system. There is no way out. But if you have a client that wants to maximize the value of their case, there is a simple answer: file suit and request a jury trial. The insurance company is either going to pay at least a reasonable value on the claim or it is going to go to trial where a jury is going to give you the fair value of the case. Because a jury is the ultimate definer of the fair value of a case.
Gauging the next “move” based solely upon how much the other side has budged- “tit for tat” negotiations with no bearing on one’s own case evaluation is another common mediation mistake. It is understandable that negotiators and mediation participants desire proportionality and reciprocity in adjusting demands and counteroffers. The problem is that many adjusters think that plaintiffs have no ceiling on the amount that they can demand, whereas defendants can never offer anything less than zero. For this reason, arguments that, “We’ve come down by $100,000 so you need to come up by $100,000” often fall on deaf (adjuster or defense lawyer) ears.
Defense lawyers often set up mediations better than personal injury lawyers. The defendant's lawyer will call you and ask for a demand. You decide to be reasonable. So when you show up at the mediation, the range is between reasonable and zero. That is the wrong psychology to settle a case.
The best way to address this problem: if defendant puts you in this game, don't be above the game with your reasonableness. Your opening demand under this dynamic should mirror the defendants’ maximum exposure. Most states now have caps on non-economic damages. Add up your economic damages: past and future medical expenses, past and future lost wages, loss of earning capacity, vocational training and/or rehabilitation. Add that number to the amount allowed under the applicable non-economic damages cap. This should be a good approximation of the maximum exposure on the claim. With any luck you will be right around the amount of the reserve the insurance carrier has set for the claim. This should help in estimating the settlement value of the case on the continuum between maximum value and zero. This will let you calibrate your demands to where you want to end up on a case, not necessarily to match the other side amount for amount.
This tactic only works in a case where it is possible a jury would give such an award. Not likely but "best day possible." If you are demanding the cap in a soft tissue injury claim, you are also sending the wrong message. Similarly, when you demand $5 million in a case where your cap is $2 million, you are sending the same "I'm not exactly sure what I'm doing" message.
The Maryland Court of Appeals decided Abrishamian v. Barbely, a pedestrian accident appeal from Montgomery County, after jury awarded only half of the client’s special damages (medical bills and lost wages) and gave $0.00 for pain and suffering. The Plaintiff loses this appeal and it is not a close call. The court, however, does discuss some interesting law that is of interest to the Maryland accident lawyer.
The first issue is no issue at all. Plaintiff’s lawyer asked the judge to recuse himself because the judge’s brother represented the defendant 17 years ago and someone else with the same last name as Defendant ten years ago. I’d love to know how the Plaintiff’s lawyer learned this fact and I’d also be curious as to why he would seek recusal for such an attenuated connection. Had the court gone the other way, it would have really brought havoc to the justice system in Mayberry. Would they have to transfer every case to Mount Pilot?
(Brief intermission: one of the great unsolved mysteries of my childhood was the distance from Mayberry to Mount Pilot. Someone once said a four hour drive, but Barney Fife said it was 12 miles. Barney was not the most credible person but 12 miles is pretty specific and he had no reason to exaggerate, given the context. I just don’t know. In an unrelated story, I may have watched too much television as a child. Let’s just get back to this case.)
The second issue is far more interesting. Defendant’s doctor was asked on cross whether he had a copy of the Plaintiff’s medical insurance card. Plaintiff’s lawyer objected before an answer could be given and the judge sustained the objection. Plaintiff’s lawyer argued the trial judge should have granted a mistrial because the question violated collateral source rule. Clearly, this is a long shot argument – a mistrial is not out of the question if the question was inappropriate, but it is a Dr. Sam Beckett quantum leap from that to mistrial as a matter law. (The court also noted that a question may not be “evidence” subject to the collateral source rule.)
Continue reading "Maryland Pedestrian Accident Appellate Opinion" »
I have put on-line Laura Zois' cross examination of the defendant driver in a Baltimore City truck accident case tried last month in which the Plaintiff received a verdict of over $1 million. The case has since settled.
This truck driver cross examination underscores that truck accident lawyers need to know the applicable trucking regulations inside and out. As you will see if you read the cross-examination, this red light/green light truck accident case was arguably won based on an obscure trucking regulation. If you are a car accident lawyer and you think, "Gee, car, truck, it is all pretty much the same thing," you are going to miss a ton of angles that could make or break your case.
Maryland Senate Bill 468 passed today in the Maryland Senate. It increases - from $10,000 to $20,000 - the maximum amount in controversy in a civil action in which a party may not demand a jury trial. In other words, defendants would only be able to "bump up" cases between $20,000 and $30,000 from District Court to Circuit Court.
Currently, any case pled in District Court for more than $10,000 can be bumped up to a jury trial. This practice, which is mostly done by insurance companies in personal injury car accident cases, leads to massive numbers of car accident cases before Maryland juries in cases that should be streamlined into District Court trials.
In fact, auto insurance companies are the problem in getting this bill passed; small businesses, for example, did not oppose this bill. Why are auto insurance companies opposed to this bill? It saves them legal costs to be sure. Is it because insurance companies get better results in front of juries than judges? No. The motive is much more nefarious: they want personal injury lawyers to have to spend time and resources in accident cases if the lawyers and their clients refuse the insurance companies' below market settlement offers in smaller cases.
Moving this bump up number from $10,000 to $20,000 is not a panacea, but it will help circuit courts in Maryland focus their energies on more serious cases.
Bob Franklin, a well respected Maryland lawyer who defends trucking companies for Franklin & Prokopik, wrote an article on defendant truck accident cases advising defense lawyers on handling plaintiffs’ truck accident lawyers’ vicarious liability arguments entitled. "But I Didn't Do It!" Expanding Theories of Vicarious Liability, 58 Fed'n Def. & Corp. Couns. Q.347 (2008). You can't deny it is a catchy title.
It is a well-written article advising defense lawyers as to how to combat different theories of vicarious liability conjured up by plaintiffs’ truck accident lawyers. But, obviously, it is also a good read for lawyers bringing truck accident cases looking to find coverage in the event of serious injuries.
Franklin offers one piece of advice I found particularly interesting:
With rising insurance costs and tight operating ratios for motor carriers and private fleet operators, many have limited excess insurance coverage or none at all. That trend coupled with ever increasing jury verdicts and settlements means there is frequently not enough insurance available to satisfy a potential or actual judgment.Such a scenario may put the fleet operator’s assets at risk if and when there is an excess judgment. Many fleet operators, particularly smaller ones, would do well to take advantage of recent changes in the law, particularly the Graves Amendment, which effectively precludes liability from being imputed simply by virtue of ownership of a vehicle that was involved in an accident. Having a separate corporate entity own the trucks (usually the operator’s most valuable asset) and lease them to the operators may effectively shield the vehicles from potential excess exposure if the proper procedure is followed.
In other words, set up another company in an effort to avoid liability.
Take a look at this Time Magazine article on auto accident lawsuits. The article has the usual stuff: insurance company complaints about high verdicts, people faking injuries, jackpot justice, the backlog in the courts, and the fact that most personal injury victims only receive small settlements. Here are a few quotes:
The automobile accounts for half to three-quarters of personal-injury suits, fully 25% of all civil cases brought to state law courts. In Chicago, more than 50,000 auto cases are awaiting trial. In Los Angeles, auto liability cases have nearly tripled in the past decade. In New York City, more than 90,000 new cases come up each year. Across the country, Americans pay out $6.5 billion a year in automobile insurance premiums—yet in the past decade the insurance companies have suffered a net loss of more than $850,000 on this business.
Getting his case to the jury so that [the auto accident victim can recover] may take four years in New York City, three years in Boston, over 2½ years in Honolulu or Detroit. Courts in Los Angeles have held the delay to less than two years. In Miami the wait is less than six months—an interval many lawyers consider too short to allow the medical evidence to "ripen." But in Chicago, at the other extreme, the traffic jam is backed up for a staggering 5½ years.
The article underscores the frustration the general public has with the whole thing: car insurance companies, the courts, car accident lawyers, and accident victims. Oh, one more thing worth mentioning. The article was published in Time over 45 years ago.
Continue reading "Car Accident Lawsuits: Time Magazine Article" »
I've been asked by Trial, the Journal of the American Association for Justice, to write an article on mediations in death and catastrophic injury cases. The article will contain a section about preparing your client's for the mediation process which is what I did yesterday last week in a wrongful death truck accident case, meeting with the decedent's 15 year-old daughter and her mother, and the victim's mother and three children. Just a wonderful family.
It is grueling to have to relive with a nice family the death of someone they loved so dearly. The hardest thing we do here is digging deep into the lives of those who experienced awful suffering. But as difficult as this process is, it also makes you feel a lot better about going to work every morning. In an age where personal injury lawyers are routinely vilified by the media, doctors, and politicians, it is uplifting to be reminded of why we left our defense lawyer hats behind to represent seriously injured victims.
Reading this back, I realize this all sounds trite. I hate reading personal injury lawyer blogs that blather on about how we are saving the world. I realize that my job is about 1/1,000,000th as important as some doctor risking his life for Doctors Without Borders in Somalia right now. I get where I fit in the circle of life. That said, even forgetting for a second the macro benefit of being a part of a system that holds people accountable for their actions, I think trial lawyers – particularly those that genuinely care about their clients – are making a big difference in the lives of many people who need our help the most.
The Baltimore Sun reports today that Maryland Insurance Commissioner Ralph S. Tyler ordered nine premium finance companies - companies that finance the Maryland Automobile Insurance Fund premiums, which consumers are still required to pay in full - to stop charging ridiculously high finance charges. Two of these finance companies also must refund money to consumers because, incredibly, they charged interest on policies that were never issued. The Baltimore Sun article suggests this will save MAIF’s customers about $100 a year.
These finance companies exist due to a quirk in the law that requires MAIF to make customers pay in full for their premiums. Since most consumers cannot afford this, these drivers turn to predatory lending companies. Everyone from MAIF itself to Ralph Tyler has argued that MAIF should allow its insured drivers to pay premiums over time, like virtually all of the rest of us.
Unfortunately, MAIF drivers, who typically have bad driving records and/or bad credit histories, have no lobbyists in Annapolis. MAIF’s competitors (particularly, as this blog discusses, State Auto) and these finance companies do have lobbyists, which is why this nonsense has been allowed to continue. Hopefully, 2009 is the year that the Maryland legislature finally gets its act together and gets rid of this nonsense.
Related Posts:
Interesting data from Jury Verdict Research on the median and average values of wrongful death cases where the decedent is female. The overall average compensatory award for wrongful death of an adult female over the last eight years in the United States is $2,990,032 ($1,102,976 is the median).
Age is a big variable when looking at median and average female wrongful death values. The average wrongful death verdict for a female between 18 and 24 is 2,990,032 ($1,102,976 median). For females between 30 and 39, women who are far more likely to have left behind children, the median wrongful death verdict escalates to $5,605,127 ($2,500,000 median). For women over 80, the average wrongful death verdict plummets to $1,314,241 (322,920 median).
I always find it maddening when insurance companies discount the value of human life in wrongful death cases because of the age of the decedent. If you are eighty years-old and you are killed, those last 10 years of seeing your kids as adults, your grandchildren coming of age and everything else that comes with it are incredibly valuable years. But these numbers, regrettably, demonstrate that there is some logic to their thinking when it comes to how juries value wrongful death cases.
Approximately 62% of the non motor vehicle wrongful death claims in this study are medical malpractice and wrongful death claims – particularly with older patients - so it is reasonable to assume that many of these wrongful death verdicts were compromise verdicts.
Related Posts:
How Lawyers and Insurance Companies Value Personal Injury Cases (summary and report on settlements and verdicts by injury type)
Value of Personal Injury Cases in Washington D.C. (District of Columbia settlements and verdicts)
Valuing Cases in Virginia (average settlements and verdicts in Virginia)
Personal Injury Verdicts Across the Country (personal injury verdicts in your state)
Wrongful Death Settlements and Verdicts in Maryland (wrongful death values)
Value of Wrongful Death Motor Vehicle Accident Cases in Maryland (average settlements and verdicts)
The Baltimore Sun reports that car insurance companies in Maryland are resisting the Maryland Automobile Insurance Fund's (MAIF’s) car insurance rate-lowering proposal because MAIF’s plan to lower rates puts the private sector at risk. After a hearing in Baltimore, Maryland Insurance Commissioner Ralph S. Tyler delayed ruling on some insurance companies’ objections to MAIF lowering their rates.
Let me get this straight. Car insurance companies cannot compete with a non-subsidized state run agency. Was Marx on to something? No, we all saw the Beijing Olympics; capitalism seems to be working just fine.
Is this really where we are? Private car insurance companies need protection from competition by MAIF? I’m not sure what the private insurance companies’ arguments are on this issue. The only argument offered by the Baltimore Sun was provided by Hal S. Katz, president of Baltimore-based Interstate Auto Insurance (IAICO). Also specializing in writing Maryland car insurance polices for drivers that have a history of trouble, IAICO complained that MAIF does not enforce its requirement that it provide car insurance only to drivers who have been rejected by two private companies.
My response to IAICO is, so what? Why can’t IAICO compete with MAIF on a level playing field without having to run to Ralph Tyler to complain that MAIF’s prices are too low? The average MAIF policy now costs $2,400. It is not like they are giving car insurance away. Either IAICO is not running their business very well, or - and this is the more likely explanation - it does not want any competition to interfere with its gouging of Maryland drivers with shady driving records or credit scores, often the people that most need the lower rates that come with competition.
Also, if MAIF has a $170 million surplus, as the Baltimore Sun reports, would it be a bad idea for MAIF to stop writing 99% of its policies at 20/40/15? If MAIF is a quasi state owned company (MAIF is not even an insurance company as defined by Maryland law), couldn’t it be in the best interest of MAIF policy holders and Maryland accident victims for MAIF to raise its policy limits to 30/60/15, at least protect its policyholders from district court (non jury trials) where the jurisdictional maximum is now $30,000?
While I’m spending MAIF’s $170 million surplus, here’s a quick plug for the enemy - the accident lawyers MAIF hires to defend its car accident cases. One of the big problems we have with MAIF, as John Bratt points out in the Baltimore Injury Lawyer Blog, is that they offer their small insurance policies too late in many cases to protect their insureds under Maryland's pay-to-play statute. Maybe if these lawyers – many of whom are fine personal injury lawyers – were paid a little more, they might have the time to figure out from the beginning whether it is an excess case where the policy should be tendered. It couldn't hurt. Even more importantly, MAIF could spend the resources to figure out which auto and truck accident cases are policy cases from the beginning. This is an investment that would actually save MAIF a ton in lawyers’ fees.
The Baltimore Injury Lawyer Blog has a post about a settlement John Bratt had just before trial in a car accident case this morning. The blog discusses the timing of settlement offers and how settling accident cases on the "courthouse steps" - particularly in small and midsized cases - is probably not in the best interests of the accident lawyer, the client, the defendant, or the insurance company. The only clear cut winner is the defense lawyer who gets to bill the file to the fullest without having to risk getting a bad outcome he/she has to explain to the client.
I hope I am not overplugging the Baltimore Injury Lawyer Blog. But I like the blog a lot and want to expose the Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog readers to it. John is doing something I should do more often: offering actual war stories from the trenches that other Maryland accident lawyers will find of interest and can use in their own practice.
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