Last Friday, a federal judge in Washington D.C. issued an opinion on whether to impose discovery sanctions on Marriott that I think is an instruction for personal injury lawyers dealing with defendants that destroy evidence. In Mahaffey v. Marriott, plaintiff’s lawsuit alleged that while exiting an elevator in a motorized…
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has warned about an outbreak of fungal meningitis that affects several states, including Maryland. Meningitis is a serious and potentially fatal infection near the brain and spinal cord that can cause brain damage or death. Anyone at risk should get to the…
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…
Instead of discussing various torts that could be committed against Raul Ibañez, a man I will now irrationally detest for the rest of my adult life, let’s talk today about witness statements and whether they are discoverable. There was an interesting opinion in a California wrongful death case this summer,…
We often handle car and truck accident cases for victims who were working at the time of the crash. (I guess a motorcycle accident claim could also be while the employee is on the job – but I have never had or seen that case.) In these types of cases,…
As I mentioned last week, I’m pretty excited about our law firm’s win in Buckley v. Brethren Mutual. I think this is an important case for two reasons. First, it shows that the Maryland Court of Special Appeals respects the actual intent of Maryland’s statutory scheme for uninsured motorist claims.…
I get so many emails from so many marketing companies. Just today I got an offer to write a guest post on this blog (no), an email telling me I rank poorly in Salisbury, Maryland on the search engines (he’s wrong), and two more random emails from companies telling me…
Sometimes it is easy to miss the federal court opinions that involve car crash cases because you just do not expect to see them there. Probably 1% of the car accident cases that we handle end up in federal court – although probably 20% of our truck accident cases get removed…
I wrote a blog post last month with the antagonizing title “Insurance Adjusters Say the Silliest Things,” discussing an article written by one insurance claims adjuster that fell into the worst stereotypes of adjusters. The post was recently picked up by an insurance claims journal (which I have since cannot…
Defense lawyers and insurance companies have this irrational fear of an unpaid lien holder coming back and claiming the insurance company must reimburse for the unpaid debt. Sure, some adjusters and lawyers push this issue because they are pathologically difficult. But I also think they have an earnest belief that…