Maryland Injury Law Center

February 18, 2016

Is Donald Trump Helping Personal Injury Lawyers?

Donald Trump has the support of a broad swath of people. Many of his supporters have the viewpoint that the problem in this country is too many lawsuits.

Trump would not take this position. He is, by any definition, a celebrity. Many celebrities have a history of using lawsuit first recourse in settling disputes.

Yesterday, Trump threatened a lawsuit if Ted Cruz does not take a campaign ad down that is predominantly made up of Trump’s own words footage in a 1999 interview saying he’s “very pro-choice.” Cruz has, with good reason, mocked the viability of such a claim, giving the sound bite that Trump has been bringing frivolous lawsuits his entire adult life.

Trump certainly has filed several unbelievable lawsuits. Here are a few highlights:

He sued two brothers for using the Trump name, even though their last name was Trump. Reportedly, these guys were worth over ten times what Trump is worth, but somehow they were using the name to piggyback off of his success. The suit went nowhere.
He sued his ex-wife for $25 million for talking about their relationship despite a confidentiality agreement. He might have technically been on the right side of this. But you get the point.
Bill Maher joked that he would pay Trump $5 million if he could prove that his father was not an orangutan. Trump produced his birth certificate and sued for $5 million when Maher did not pay. This one has a real elementary school vibe to it, doesn’t it? Trump eventually dropped the case.
He sued the Chicago Tribune for $500 million after the paper’s architecture critic wrote he thought the Chicago’s Sears Tower would remain its world’s tallest building title even though Trump has made a plan to build a taller building on the East River in Manhattan. Reportedly, Trump did not even hire an architect for the building. A federal court judge dismissed the case, ruling that you cannot sue someone for their subjective opinions.

February 16, 2016

Maryland Rule 1-311

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

An amendment to Rule 1-311 went into effect on January 1st. The amendment requires that all pleadings filed electronically with an electronic signature must include the attorney’s client protection fund number.

I cannot find the amended version of this new rule online. I highly doubt Judge Barbera will drive down to your office to compel compliance. But it would be a smart idea to comply now. At some point, someone will argue that the pleading was not valid without the lawyer’s client security trust fund number. Do you win that battle? Yes. But you lose even when you won; when you are fighting a fight that should not have been fought in the first place. I also don’t want the clerk’s office to call and scream at me. It never pays to make those people mad.

Rule 1-311 is the rule that requires an attorney’s signature on every pleading.

February 16, 2016

When Should You Settle a Personal Injury Case?

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

You’ve met your injured client, executed your fee agreement, gathered your facts and put your file together. Your client is asking whether it is time to settle her personal injury case. Is it time to consider a settlement? If you settle a case too soon, you are leaving money on the table. If you wait too long, you are wasting time…. or worse.

Be Clear on Notice and Filing Deadlines

When can I settle my client’s personal injury case?

When deciding whether it is time to settle your case, first and foremost, check the statute of limitations. If you have a statute problem, all bets are off. If you have less than six months, file suit. You can worry about settlement later. You do not want to lose your right to bring a claim. There are exceedingly few exceptions to a statute of limitations.

You can always serve the defendant, send a copy to the claims representative with whom you’ve been dealing, and agree to take no further action during a fixed time period, during which it is understood that settlement negotiations will be addressed. Also, be sure early on, when opening your file, whether there are any statutory notice provisions with which you must comply pre-suit. Sometimes they are obvious — clearly county-owned vehicle — and sometimes you will never be able to know unless you file suit and get the defendant’s discovery responses.

You can always serve the defendant, send a copy to the claims representative, and agree to take no further action during a fixed time period, during which it is understood that settlement negotiations will be addressed. Also, be sure early on, when opening your file, whether there are any statutory notice provisions with which you must comply pre-suit. Claims against state and local governments typically have provisions such as these, which require specific notice to be given to designated officials. If you are an inexperienced lawyer or a pro se plaintiff, read that last sentence carefully. Because “Oh, come on, I’m sure it got to the right person” will not fly.

February 9, 2016

Value of Baltimore Personal Injury Cases Post Freddie Gray

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

Click to enlarge

Baltimore City settled a wrongful death and survival action by Freddie Gray’s family for $6.4 million. The criminally unfair Maryland Local Government Tort Claim Act would have capped these claims at $400,000. So Baltimore City settled for a whopping $6 million more than the maximum value of the case. Said another way, the settlement was 16 times the cap for personal injury and wrongful death claims had this case taken the standard path and been heard by a Baltimore City jury.

High-profile cases mold public perception, in Baltimore and throughout Maryland, of our civil justice system. People form impressions on how well the system performs when placing dollar amounts on personal injury and wrongful death cases.

On some level, Freddie Gray is a Baltimore specific McDonald’s coffee case. It has now been 24 years since Stella Liebeck spilled coffee on herself at a McDonald’s drive-through in New Mexico and that case continues to inform prospective jurors on how personal injury cases actually work. Freddie Gray may leave a similar legacy in Baltimore. What will that legacy be? What misimpressions will jurors carry into the jury box because of this case? I believe there are unintended consequences to this settlement that will be felt for years.

I think these are the Freddy Gray takeaway messages:

January 28, 2016

Was Ronald Reagan for Tort Reform?

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

Clearly, the new Republican tradition is to pay homage to Ronald Reagan whenever you have a segue to do so – and even when there’s not. Everyone has forgotten Iran-Contra and those Marines in Lebanon. Instead, we have focused on the fact that he presided over 8 years of relative peace and prosperity. Most people also agree he made a real contribution to our victory in the Cold War.

At a debate back for the RNC Chairmanship, Grover Norquist asked the candidates, “Who is your favorite Republican president?” Every one of the six candidates picked Reagan.

Poor Lincoln. Even Democrats look back on Reagan and point out – maybe correctly, I don’t know – that Reagan is not conservative enough to win the Republican nomination in 2016. (Of course, in 2018, the cult of Donald Trump has led to a devaluation of Reagan and his legacy. But this is likely a very temporary revision.)

The Evidence

You have heard of Stella Liebeck and the McDonald’s coffee case. Yep, over 30 years later, that is still a thing. But before Stella, there was “the phone booth case” that Reagan raised in a 1986 speech:

A man was using a public telephone booth to place a call. An alleged drunk driver careened down the street, lost control of her car, and crashed into the phone booth. Now, it’s no surprise that the injured man sued. But you might be startled to hear whom he sued: the telephone company and associated firms.

All of this is true. People love to make a big deal about someone suing someone as a harbinger for chaos because the lawsuit is so unjust. But all you need to file a lawsuit is 115 bucks (at least in Maryland). People file utterly ridiculous lawsuits all the time. In this case, the guy was paralyzed, and he brought suit and the phone company settled (for like $25,000 in a catastrophic injury case.)

I don’t know why insanity is imputed because some company does not have the guts to take a case to trial. But everyone jumped on to the idea that there is great meaning to the court’s failure to rule for the defendant on its motion for summary judgment (edit: the trial judge granted the MSJ but the California Supreme Court flipped the order). But I guess Reagan was pretty fired up about it in his speech, so that is why the legend lives on to this day that Reagan was pro-tort reform.

A Closer Look at Reagan and Tort Reform

I found on my Google +1 a post (update — Google +1 is dead) from someone who worked for Reagan, which looks at what he actually said about tort reform. Apparently, all of his years of public life, Reagan gave only one tort reform speech in his political career in which he specifically said the issue is one for individual states. He never followed up on this speech.

January 14, 2016

New Federal Opinion on Johns Hopkins Malpractice Lawsuit

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

Johns Hopkins is quite possibly the greatest hospital in the history of the world. People come from all over the world to get the best medical care that Hopkins can provide.

Delayed removal response means the claim against Hopkins will be in federal court

The U.S District Court in Baltimore decided this week a case involving a woman who traveled from Kuwait to get treatment at Hopkins to get cancer treatment only to lose her leg. She believes she lost her leg because the doctors at Hopkins committed malpractice. The question in the case is whether this medical malpractice lawsuit against Johns Hopkins should be heard in federal court on in state court.

I don’t know if negligence caused this woman to lose her leg. But I do know that as great of a hospital as Johns Hopkins is, mistakes do happen there that cause severe injuries and death. Like any hospital, Hopkins has bad doctors and good doctors that sometimes make poor decisions.

This case is not about what happened to the patient. Instead, the question is whether this medical malpractice lawsuit against Johns Hopkins will be heard in federal court on in state court. In a blow to the Plaintiff, the court ruled that this case will be heard by a federal judge and jury.

Video discussing medical malpractice lawsuits against Johns Hopkins

January 6, 2016

Medical Malpractice or Mere Negligence?

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

Would you rather sue a healthcare provider for negligence in Health Claims as a medical malpractice case or would you rather file a simple negligence case in Circuit Court?

If your answer was Health Claims, you need to get your head examined. Filing in Health Claims in Maryland just creates more hoops that you need to jump through. Are they manageable? Absolutely. But when it comes to Byzantine rules and conditions precedent, sign me up for the path of least resistance wherever possible.

Is it Negligence or Medical Malpractice?

The determination of whether a claim against a health care provider belongs in Health Claim is based on whether the claim involves a “medical injury” as defined by MD. CODE ANN., CTS. & Jud. PROC. § 3-2A-01(g) The statute states a “medical injury” is an “injury arising or resulting from the rendering or failure to render health care.” Not every tortious injury inflicted on a patient by a healthcare provider is medical malpractice. The distinction between ordinary negligence and malpractice hinges on whether the mistake involves a matter of medical science or act requiring special skills not possessed by laypersons. So if the negligence or lack thereof can be assessed based on the common everyday experience of the jury, it is not a medical malpractice case.

What constitutes a “medical injury” in Maryland? This has been the subject of a few Maryland appellate cases. It is clear that intentional torts like assault and battery are not subject to Health Claims. So if a doctor intentionally hits a child while removing stitches, that claim will not be subject to health claims. But we are talking about classic assault and battery. You can’t just call it assault and battery if it is actually a medical injury.

January 5, 2016

Another Jury Prayer Maryland Appellate Opinion

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

Late last year, the Maryland Court of Appeals decided yet another “Should we shoot for justice or dwell on the hypertechnical?” case in Lisy Corp v. McCormick and Co. The court went the wrong way.

Here, the Plaintiff filed a lawsuit in Howard County alleging both tort and contract claims. When you file a lawsuit in Maryland, you fill out a Case Information Report (“CIR”) to serve on the Defendant. A CIR is a three-page administrative form that helps the court process cases. The court is looking to find out things like the nature of the claim and the amount of damages that are sought and, most germane to this case, whether the Plaintiff is seeking a jury trial.

Maryland Rule 16-202(b) makes it abundantly clear that the purpose of the CIR is only case management by the court. But it is also undisputedly a clear intention by the Plaintiff to seek a jury trial.

The Plaintiff’s attorney asked for a jury trial in the CIR but neglected to file a separate document as required by the rules requesting a jury trial. So the question in the case is whether a CIR is an acceptable vehicle for demanding a jury trial under Maryland law.

October 7, 2015

When Should You Hire an Expert in Accident Cases?

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

When should you retain an expert in a personal injury accident case? The short answer is early, usually earlier than you think.

This is never a problem in medical malpractice cases, because it is well understood that medical malpractice claims are predicated on expert testimony, to even bring forth a claim in the first place. But lawyers — both Plaintiffs’ lawyers and defense attorneys — typically wait too long.

How do you know whether you need an expert? Investigate. Early. Do you have a problem with speed, with drinking, with highway design, or with a “dangerous condition?” You will not know if you have any of these problems, without investigating your claims properly.

October 5, 2015

New Law, New Weapon for Maryland Plaintiffs’ Lawyers

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

Insurance companies in Maryland are now required to disclose upon request from the victim or their personal injury attorney the amount of insurance coverage their client may have. So you can find out from day one, how much coverage might be available to satisfy your client’s injury claim. This law went into effect on October 1, 2015. If you are a Maryland personal injury lawyer, you’re probably in the top 1% of your colleagues in knowing of the existence of this law. I think it is a well-kept secret because I don’t believe any lobbying went into this effort. No one is climbing over themselves to claim credit for it. Just the Maryland General Assembly doing their job. Who knew?