Plaintiff should have used marijuana? People get in car accidents and they get badly hurt. So insurance defense lawyers end up making some crazy arguments. But in Glesby v. MacMillian, a Maryland car accident case, the defendant reached a new height of insanity: arguing that the plaintiff should have used…
New Uninsured Motorist and Jury Awarded Zero in Pain and Suffering Damages Opinion Last week in Keller v. Serio, the Maryland Court of Appeals took yet another look at two issues that have been reoccurring leitmotifs in Maryland appellate opinions: (1) to what extent can we talk about uninsured motorist…
The U.S. District Court for Maryland made a noteworthy ruling in Jackson v. Johnson, a Maryland auto tort case that is an interesting case that involves federal diversity law and interesting plaintiffs’ lawyer tactics in finding their preferred venue for the case. Plaintiffs’ Venue Tactics on Full Display The Battleground…
Maryland Verdict Statistics [Note: This post was originally written in 2006 and then updated in 2014, 2018, and 2023.] It is always interesting for a personal injury attorney to hear about trial verdicts in accident cases. We subscribe to Metro Verdicts Monthly, which summarizes primarily personal injury accident cases in…
Can you strike a juror based on sexual preference? This week, the 9th Circuit took this issue on. SmithKline Beecham v. Abbott Laboratories is a case of two giant drug companies fighting each other over what I’m sure is already obscene profits involving the sale of an anti-HIV drug. In…
I was in Florida after Christmas and missed the Maryland Court of Special Appeals’ opinion in Ayala v. Lee, a truck collision case in Anne Arundel County where the plaintiffs were two undocumented aliens who were rear-ended near Annapolis. After crossing the Bay Bridge, the driver of the plaintiffs’ vehicle…
Justice in Malpractice Cases Is Expensive Every single day we get phone calls from prospective clients who want to bring a medical malpractice case. We probably do a full investigation in 5% of these cases and sue in half of those cases. Why so low? In most cases, we…
Mark Mixter and James Farmer are two Maryland tort lawyers that just don’t like each other. There are lots of attorneys that don’t like each other. Lawyers are probably more confrontational and competitive than your average bear. If you doubt this premise, go watch a lawyers’ league softball…
If you badmouth an out-of-state company on the Internet, are you subject to personal jurisdiction in the state where the company resides? In Fertel v. Davidson, a federal court in Maryland was given this interesting question with an interesting set of facts. A 52-year-old artist, who was in a…
Do you have both a comp claim and PI case? Many of our personal injury clients bring both a regular civil claim and a workers’ compensation claim. Yet we get calls every week from someone who has an otherwise valid tort claim that may not bring that claim because of…