An insurance policy is a contract. Insureds must read and understand their own insurance policy. Right? Except no one reads an insurance policy. I’m not just talking about Joe Six-Pack here. I’m talking about you, my dear reader: You, me, all of us. Why? Because our busy and lazy lives…
In an unpublished decision authored by Judge Kevin Arthur, the Maryland Appellate Court ruled that the Baltimore City Circuit Court acted within its authority when it accepted an expert’s testimony regarding medical causation in a lead paint case. Furthermore, the court found that the evidence presented was adequate to justify…
This is an old post from 2006 we wrote in 2023 to include settlement and verdicts in police emergency car accident claims, recent police emergency case law and statutes in other jurisdictions, and a sample complaint against the police department in a car accident case. The Court of Special Appeals…
Obviously, emails are hearsay evidence that are admissible at trial. Donati v. State is a criminal case that teaches us a lesson in how to get an email into evidence at trial. Emails are admissible in court. You just have to know what the law requires to admit emails into…
Two weeks ago in Esteppe v. Balt. City Police Dept., (No. 47, Sept. Term 2020) (Sept. 1, 2021) the Maryland Court of Appeals held that a police department was not responsible for a judgment against a corrupt police detective simply because his unlawful arrest was done for personal reasons and,…
How much money can you get for pain and suffering when someone negligently or intentionally kills your dog? Is it $1.25 million, which is what a jury awarded, or $7,500? In Anne Arundel County v. Reeves, No. 68 Sept. Term, 2019 (Md. June 7, 2021) the Court of Appeals weighed…
As courts around the country struggle to get back to the business of hearing and deciding cases, many states have recently adopted plans to have virtual jury trials. This raises the possibility that Maryland might follow suit and adopt its own plan for virtual jury trials. In this post, we…
When a litigation settlement offer is “still on the table,” what exactly does that mean and how long does an offer last on “the table” before it expires? In Moore v. Donegal Mutual Ins. Co. (No. 788) the Maryland Court of Special Appeals (COSA) considers these ponderous questions about the…
States are split on whether tort liability may be imposed on local governments for police brutality/excessive force/misconduct cases. Some states permit the imposition of tort liability for their police officers’ intentional actions while on the job. Some refuse to impose tort liability, arguing that such conduct is not within the…
In its final decision of the Term, Maryland’s Court of Appeals gave us an (arguably) game-changing decision Rochkind v. Stevenson. The court announced that it was discarding the old Frye-Reed rule and formally adopting the Daubert test for the admissibility of expert testimony. We all knew we would get here…