The Maryland Court of Special Appeals decided a chain reaction automobile tort case last week in Cooper v. Singleton that leaves me confused about the current state of Maryland law as to how we communicate our presumption of negligence rule to juries in rear-end collisions… and hoping the Maryland high court steps…
One hot button issue in Maryland medical malpractice cases today is the circumstances under which defense lawyers can speak to Plaintiff’s treating doctor. For years, this was not an issue. If a defense lawyer wanted to talk to a treating doctor, she would just pick up the phone and call.…
In Young v. Swiney, the U.S. District Court of Maryland was presented with an interesting, albeit depressing question: Can a suicide, two years after a truck crash, be causally related to the accident? The Facts There was no dispute as to liability. The defendant trucking company sought summary judgment on plaintiffs’…
In Valentine-Bowers v. Retina Group of Washington, a new medical malpractice case decided by the Maryland Court of Special Appeals, the plaintiff alleged that her physician failed to monitor a problem with her eye that caused her to lose vision in that eye. It is a serious injury for a young…
Maryland courtrooms are slow keeping up with the times. This is not an altogether bad thing. What happens in the courtroom matters and we should probably let society work out the kinks of technology and understand all of the potential unintended consequences before our judicial system leaps into the next big…
Our Memorial Day weekend got a good kickoff with a $5.2 million verdict in Baltimore in an emergency room misdiagnosis medical malpractice case. I can’t start out the facts of this case without pointing out how amazing our client and his family were and are. Just a great loyal family.…
Update: Stop the presses. This rule has already been repealed. We have a new rule in Maryland: Rule 1-322.2: Rule 1-322.2 shall take effect and apply to all actions commenced on or after July 1, 2014, and insofar as practicable to all actions then pending. (a) Certificate Required. Every pleading…
Drafting Interrogatories In Maryland, each party is allowed 30 interrogatories under Maryland Rule 421 without leave of the court. I was looking at a case today that was referred to us by a lawyer who had already filed suit in the case. Our lawyers are normally hesitant to take a…
The average verdict in a Maryland auto tort case is around $12,000. How can this be? I’ll tell you how it be: attorneys filing cases in Circuit Court that just should not be going in front of a jury. These are my thoughts after reading about a recent jury verdict…
In Kassem v. Gaddy, the Michigan Court of Appeals was faced with a simple question: can you scare a man to death? Facts of Kassem This is an odd case. An 85-year-old man crashed into the back of a tractor trailer. It sounds like the man was at fault…