This quote leads off an article in Property and Casualty 360: To me, a claims man is a surgeon. That desk is an operating table. And those pencils are scalpels and bone chisels. And those papers are not just forms and statistics and claims for compensation, they’re alive, they’re packed…
A Florida judge was disqualified from a wrongful death tobacco case after comparing the defendant’s former CEO to Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele. No-brainer decision? I’m not so sure. Here is what happened. During the trial, a hearing was held outside of the presence of the jury on whether a…
So, Allstate has published its eighth annual report of cities with the worst drivers. Given the publisher of the study, I immediately began searching for some hidden bias. Apparently, we are in the eye of the storm. Washington D.C. is ranked first – which means worst – with Baltimore City…
You can call it a sad but true fact if you want: the value of a personal injury case in Maryland might double (or be cut in half) based on where the case is tried. I provide here our thoughts on where each Maryland county and Baltimore City ranks on…
Defense lawyers are reluctant to say that the plaintiff is lying. They will insinuate, suggest, intimate, and any other verb you can think of to lead that horse to water, but they will rarely come out and say it. It is largely a trial tactics decision, but it is also…
I just had a great talk on settlement with a State Farm claims adjuster. No, really. It is true. I am not kidding. I made a demand. She said she asked for authority right about what I was asking for, but the settlement authority she has is “X”. The adjuster…
Now, this is a shock. The Maryland Court of Appeals ends its summer of avoiding personal injury cases with a vengeance by reconsidering and overruling its own controversial ruling on strict liability for pit bull attacks. The court reversed course and decided that the ruling should only apply to purebred…
Here is the email I got from Progressive’s PR people today: In response to your story involving Progressive Insurance, please see the below updated statement on behalf of Progressive: For the past week, Progressive has been in active settlement discussions with the family of Kaitlynn Fisher. Though there was considerable…
In Bailey Lumber & Supply Company v. Robinson, the Mississippi Supreme Court reversed a $1 million award in a slip and fall case, finding that while plaintiff’s medical expert – an internal medicine doctor – could testify about the plaintiff’s hip problem, he did not have the expertise to offer…
I have gotten a lot of interesting comments on the “Progressive did not tender policy limits in wrongful death case in Baltimore” Internet firestorm. One fascinating idea set forth from one commenter is that this becomes the insurance industry’s McDonald’s coffee case. The commenter dismisses the notion, but it is…