Articles Posted in Auto Accidents

The Baltimore Sun reports that the presidents of the University of Maryland, Towson University, Washington College, Johns Hopkins, Goucher College and Washington College among other schools have signed off on a letter urging Congress to lower the drinking age to 18, saying we need to stop relearning the lessons of Prohibition.

Should We Lower the Drinking Age?

This is crazy to me. But we need the authors of “Freakonomics” to help us sort this out. Drunk driving deaths decreased when the age was increased from 18 to 21. But the 80s also saw a substantial increase in awareness at the same time we were raising the drinking age around the country.

Last week, I wrote a recent Missouri Supreme Court opinion that found that a driver could recover emotional damages in a lawsuit against the parent of a child killed in a truck accident. Today, I found Taylor v. Mucci, a Connecticut Supreme Court issued on Tuesday that reaches a different conclusion in a slightly different context that involves the interpretation of “bodily injury” in an insurance policy.

On Christmas Eve in 2004, the Plaintiff’s minor son, Andrew, was struck by a car driven by the Defendant. Andrew’s case settled but Plaintiff maintained a negligence claim for the emotional distress suffered having witnessed the accident.

At the time of the accident, the Defendant had a 100/300 insurance policy with Metropolitan Property and Casualty Insurance. The trial judge ruled in favor of the defendant, finding that the insurance policy did not cover claims for bystander emotional distress.

The California 2nd Court of Appeals issued an interesting opinion addressing the question of just how much of a plaintiff’s personal life is fair game of cross-examination in Winfred D. v. Michelin North America.

(Random comment: Can we all use first names where there are the remotest of privacy issues in question like this court does? If you are killed and your family brings a wrongful death claim or even if you are a doctor accused of medical malpractice, should someone’s Google legacy really be their name in a legal case that might include personal details? Who opposes this?)

Plaintiff suffered a catastrophic brain injury when his tire split while driving a cargo van. Plaintiff’s treating doctors testified that the accident left the Plaintiff, a college graduate, with the functional skills of a 4th grader. One of his doctors testified that Plaintiff was “incompetent” to give testimony in that “his memory is flawed,” and he says things that he believes to be true which may not be because of his brain injury. Awful, right?

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I’m back from a jury trial in Prince George’s County that “resolved” yesterday. It was a bifurcated liability only case. My client suffered a leg amputation. Easily one of the best clients and best families we have ever represented. After almost six hours of deliberation, the jury was deadlocked on all four questions presented to them at 3-3. From talking to the jury afterward—all nice people—we could have kept them together for a week and they would not have been able to resolve it.

(How often do we have hung juries? I’ve never had one before. So I asked Google. Apparently, a study by the National Center for State Courts and National Institute of Justice found the overall average hung jury rate was 6.2 percent. I suspect the rate is lower for civil trials because the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard ties up a lot of jurors and many states have more jurors in criminal cases than in civil cases which probably increases the likelihood of a holdout.)