Like the rest of the Baltimore community this past week, I was shocked to hear that Dr. Nikita Levy, a gynecologist at Johns Hopkins’ East Baltimore Medical Center, has been accused of secretly videotaping and photographing his patients. You have heard the allegations if you have access to a newspaper…
Last week the Maryland Court of Special Appeals upheld a trial court’s ruling in Smith v. Johns Hopkins Community Physicians. Before we get into the facts, let’s talk Maryland venue law. Here is the most important thing you would need to know in a just world: The moving party has…
Every now and again I read a publication called “Physician Risk Management.” Billed as a publication to help doctors minimize liability and protect them from lawsuits, it is a well-written publication written by people who do seem to know what they are talking about. Here is why I don’t like…
U.S. District of Judge Richard D. Bennett issued an opinion Monday in Robertson v. Iuliano, an informed consent medical malpractice lawsuit against a neurosurgeon and St. Agnes Hospital. New Opinion on Apparent Agency and Informed Consent Law in Maryland The first question you might have is how this malpractice case ended…
Anyone who can blithely throw together a joint tortfeasor release in a malpractice or another complicated tort claim without reading the case law 10 times is an absolute expert on these releases or suffers from an extreme case of irrational confidence. Usually, in my experience, it is the latter. The…
There is an interesting medical malpractice case on appeal in Ohio – Longbottom v. Mercy Hospital – that I thought deserved a quick blog post today. The case poses some interesting questions on how far outside the box of the case a jury can go in making inferences that were…
The Georgia Court of Appeals issued an opinion last Thursday on an interesting issue in a wrongful death malpractice claim that we see all too frequently: botched laparoscopic gallbladder surgery. Quick facts in this classic malpractice case. Defendant performs a lap chole procedure on a man. The man returns to…
Do you need an affidavit/certificate of merit in an informed consent case? Last week, the 3rd Circuit said that you need a certificate under New Jersey law in Mulholland v. Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals. This blog post is about this case and how the result would likely be different under…
The 8th Circuit affirmed a defense verdict in a medical malpractice action this week in Avichail v. St. John’s Mercy Health System. The case had a few interesting legal issues: a Batson challenge and a dispute over whether a witness could use an interpreter. So, given the Maryland appellate courts’…
Yesterday, I was lamenting the lack of interesting Maryland appellate opinions to write about on this blog. But, I let one slip by last month: the Court of Special Appeals’ opinion in Schneider v. Little. This is a medical malpractice case that was initially tried in Harford County in 2010…