I have expressed my disdain for Maryland’s cap on non-economic damages many times on this blog. I read an interesting article in the University of Baltimore Law Forum on an issue to which I have never given much consideration: the impact of the cap on non-economic damages on women. In…
One new bill that came out of Annapolis this year, and will become Maryland law on October 1, 2007, aimed at limiting one of the predatory insurance practices: the “don’t hire a lawyer and I’ll give you a quick settlement” tactic. Among the major auto insurance carriers in Maryland, I…
One-hundred percent of our law firm’s practice is personal injury cases. We do not and will not take any defense cases even if we believe in the defendant’s case. Yet, last year I found myself on the other side of the coin as a defense expert. I served as a…
Last week, a well-respected defense lawyer told one of our lawyers they possessed the Maryland Trial Lawyers Association’s “Handbook,” which spells out the terms for a defense requested medical examination. This “Handbook” has made its way into a Motion to Compel a Physical Examination, specifically including this “MTLA Handbook” as…
We are handling a red light/green light auto accident case that occurred in Towson, Maryland a few years ago that resulted in substantial permanent injuries to our client. Trial is a few months away. The insurance company for the Defendant is the Maryland Automobile Insurance Fund (MAIF). Their attorneys recently…
Goal number one when your client is giving a deposition is to do no harm. The greatest harm your client can do in almost any personal injury case in his/her deposition is to get caught in a lie. Clients are most prone to “lie” about prior car accidents because they…
I stumbled on a Metro Verdicts Monthly from last year that examined the success plaintiffs have at trial in slip and fall cases on snow and ice. In Maryland, defendants prevailed 62% of the time. The difficulty in these cases often lies not with whether the defendant was negligent, but…
When I received an advertisement for a book on Deposing Difficult Doctors by Florida personal injury lawyer, Kim Hart, the title caught my attention. The advertisement included excerpts from the book. What caught my interest is videotaping “independent” medical exams (IMEs). The book makes two arguments in favor of videotaping…
My partner, Laura Zois, conducted a videotape trial cross-examination of frequent flyer defense medical expert, Dr. Robert O. Gordon, a doctor who makes a lot of money working for insurance companies and, frequently, for State Farm. During his examination, he spewed out many inappropriate and factually incorrect statements. Here is…
The National Law Journal reports that a few personal injury lawyers are relying on handwriting experts to help the lawyers in selecting juries. Handwriting analysis uses various clues, including the amount of pressure used, the size and angles of the letters, and spaces between words to paint a picture of…