Nice Stock Photo of a Mediation One of the most important things to do to prepare for mediation is to get the client ready for mediation. If you are prepping a client for mediation in a personal injury case, don’t forget to prepare the client for what may come in…
Five years ago, I had never heard of Ameriprise Auto & Home Insurance. Now, I’m seeing more and more Ameriprise claims that involve an Ameriprise insured defendant. Ameriprise does not have a lot of market share in Maryland. But the Ameriprise website claims it is one of the fastest-growing insurance…
In another big informed consent opinion, the Wisconsin Supreme Court in Bubb v. Brusky overturned the trial court and an intermediate Wisconsin appellate court in finding that a doctor had to inform his patient of the treatment options if the medical community is split as to the course. This case…
Big summer for the Maryland Court of Appeals in personal injury/medical malpractice appellate opinions. The latest in a recent spate of Maryland high court opinions, McQuitty v. Spangler, involves a tragic case of a boy who was born with severe cerebral palsy. Facts of this Birth Injury Case The plaintiff’s lawyer…
How many medical malpractice trials have there been in Washington D.C. this year? Ummm, let’s see, medical malpractice lawsuits are out of control. I know this because I read the Forbes article repeating the “malpractice lawsuits are running amok and medical malpractice lawyers are the problem” mantra. So how many…
The Maryland Court of Appeals has two big cases in 2009—a lead paint case and a medical malpractice claim – in which plaintiffs seek a path around Maryland’s non-economic damages cap after big jury verdicts. Plaintiffs lost Round 1 today. [2019 update: And Round 2, Round 3, and so on.…
The Maryland Court of Special Appeals found Monday that the trial court erred in excluding the estate of a five-year-old drowning victim from presenting a survival action for conscious pain and suffering of the child while drowning. You can find the opinion here. I first blogged about this case two…
I read a series of articles in Trial Magazine on cross-examining experts at trial. One article revolved around a joke the lawyer made and how everyone laughed, except for the expert. The moral of the article is that the expert’s failure to laugh at the joke “showed the witness’s pomposity”…
The Maryland Court of Special Appeals in a 2-1 decision today affirmed a Frederick County trial court’s grant of summary judgment to Erie Insurance in an underinsured motorist lawsuit. The nutshell: State Farm paid its $100,000 liability policy in a serious injury car accident case. Plaintiff sought payment under his…
The 1st Circuit Court of Appeals wrote a helpful opinion in Morel v. DaimlerChrysler AG for product attorneys who get the name of the defendant wrong when filing just before the statute of limitations expires. The court elevated substance over form in finding the claim “relates back” under federal law. The…