Maryland Injury Law Center

November 17, 2014

New Maryland Appellate Opinion | Asphalt and Concrete Services v. Perry

The Maryland Court of Special Appeals handed down an interesting opinion in Asphalt and Concrete Services v. Perry, reversing a half-million dollar verdict. This case is a cautionary tale for lawyers who want to get every possible thing they can, in order to make the defendant look bad. I understand the urge, believe me. But sometimes you are just asking for an appeal that will get your case reversed. This is an opinion every Maryland personal injury lawyer — on both sides of the aisle — should read and keep in the back of their minds. This case also has some good law and bad law for plaintiffs’ lawyers that is worth knowing.

November 3, 2014

Judge Decides to Ignore Cap in Non-Economic Damages

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

Last month in a medical malpractice case in Milwaukee, a judge did something pretty amazing. Here is the setup. A woman has both her arms and legs amputated because of a Strep A infection and the treatment she received for septic shock, resulting in compromised blood flow. This is, no question, a stunningly awful tragedy. A jury believed that medical malpractice caused these injuries and awarded $15.75 million in pain and suffering damages and $9 million in economic damages. But Wisconsin has a $750,000 cap on non-economic damages that the trial judge, in this case, believed was constitutionally sound. So that’s that, right?

In a 21-page decision, Judge Jeffery Conen explained that his ruling does not strike down Wisconsin’s $750,000 cap on non-economic awards:

Although the cap may be constitutional as applied to medical malpractice victims as a whole, there is no rational justification for depriving Mrs. Mayo, who is in her mid-fifties, limbless, and largely immobile, and Mr. Mayo of the award the jury decided was appropriate to compensate them for their injuries…”

It is unreasonable to require Mrs. Mayo and her husband, whose lives have been so drastically altered, to bear the brunt of the legislature’s intended tort reform…. there is no rational basis [for slashing the award] in the hopes of marginally improving health care in Wisconsin.

October 15, 2014

Maryland High Court to Hear State Farm Property Damage Case

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

I have taught insurance law for the last 17 years at the University of Baltimore Law School. I think it is important to explain both the hornbook majority view and Maryland law. Typically, what I’m saying is that the majority view is this balanced, reasonable law… and then there is Maryland law which seems to bend over backward to favor insurance companies.

There is a political element to this. Maryland insurance law is stunningly conservative. Paul Ryan himself probably vigorously approves. Yet Maryland is an extremely liberal state. Sure, we went through that crazy college experimentation-like phase with Bob Ehrlich but we have consistently picked liberal governors and have consistently had a solid liberal majority in the Maryland General Assembly. So why are we the Rush Limbaugh of insurance?

October 13, 2014

I Got Ejected from a Little League Game Yesterday

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

I got tossed from a little league baseball game yesterday.

I know what you are thinking. Keep your mind open. Continue reading

October 1, 2014

What Are the Most Common Motor Vehicle Accident Injuries?

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

I was looking today at some interesting statistics on the most frequent types of car and other motor vehicle accident injuries that go to trial. It breaks down like this:

Back strains: 33%
Disc injuries: 15%
Spinal nerve injuries: 10%
Head injuries: 10%
Shoulder injuries: 4%
Knee injuries: 3%
Brain damage: 3%
Vertebra injuries: 3%
Everything else (including wrongful death): 2%

At Miller & Zois, we do not handle many simple back strain cases so that 33% probably gets knocked by at 5%. A lot of our cases come from attorney referrals from other personal injury lawyers who are keeping these types of cases for themselves, as they well should. Our website constantly underscores “serious injury only” which keeps away a lot of those smaller cases. We do this because our business model which requires us to work up every case like it is our only case (self-serving, sure, but true) does not work well with smaller cases economically.

September 22, 2014

Truck Accidents and Driving Records | Shekoski v. Bindig

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

A new appellate opinion offers some interesting insight into the parameters under which a plaintiff may inquire about a truck driver’s driving record and the extent to which plaintiffs’ truck accident attorneys can use cross-examination fodder like the commercial driver license manual and other safety manuals.

Fact of the Case

Briefly, a man on a bicycle was killed when he was hit by a truck. The bicyclist was making a right turn against a red light on a white pedestrian signal. The truck hit him, and he was dragged for several hundred feet.

September 19, 2014

Baltimore Wrongful Death Lawyers | Fatality Compensation Claims

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

In Maryland, a wrongful death lawsuit can be brought by a family member of someone who was negligently killed. The wrongful death lawyers at Miller & Zois, LLC have over 100 years of combined experience handling wrongful death claims in Baltimore where our law offices are based.

Our firm also covers all of Maryland and travels and tries cases in every county in our state. We have a history of success in these cases and a willingness to fight to the end to get you the compensation that you deserve for your loss.

Call my law firm today at 800-553-8082 or get a free, no-obligation online consultation.

Maximizing the Amount of Compensation

When you lost someone you love, there is no about of money that can get you what you really want — your loved one back. The only thing the legal system can do is give you money to compensate you for your loss. At Miller & Zois, our mission is to get you as much money as possible for your wrongful death case in a settlement or a verdict. Our goal is not to get you a lot of money, not to do the best we can. No. Our goal is to leverage the law and the facts to get you as much money as humanly possible.

September 9, 2014

Challenges in Scheduling Depositions | Pennsylvania Case

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

Scheduling depositions in car accident lawsuits usually is not a complex thing. You call the other side; you agree on dates, and you have your depositions. The key is cooperation. Rather than unilaterally serving a deposition notice, you just call opposing counsel and agree to the place, date, and time. There are rare issues.

For some reason, and I’m not entirely sure why, but scheduling depositions in medical malpractice cases always seems to be an ordeal. Common courtesies that I’m sure many Maryland malpractice lawyers accord each other in the rest of our lives sometimes go out the window. Sometimes, it seems like otherwise ethical lawyers have no qualms about making up excuses for why they or the deponents cannot attend a deposition that are not based in fact. Often, you can figure this out when you depose the witness. Continue reading

September 8, 2014

Fighting and Winning Against Pit Bull Defense Lawyers

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

There are lots of insurance defense lawyers in Maryland that you just cannot figure out why someone would hire them to defend a personal injury case. They unnecessarily complicate cases, bill hours on things that are completely unrelated to anything that would benefit the defense and, often, juries cannot stand them because there is a positive correlation between someone willing to be this annoying and how annoying they are, according to independent studies that I have conducted.

Why Insurance Companies Hire These Lawyers

The lawyer that fits this profile sometimes gets a lot of work. Why? Like any job, insurance adjusters are all kinds of different people. Democrats and Republicans. Athletes and bookworms. Compassionate and mean. Attractive and not-so-much. But, disproportionately, they are tough guys. They want to wage war in the seas and the valley and talk tough and be tough. For some of them, the rest of their lives belie this mentality. But that is a whole different story. Continue reading

August 27, 2014

Jeep Liberty Recall Because of Steering Defect

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

In Troubles with Jeep Liberty

Jeep Liberty is a cool-looking vehicle that has been off the market for the last three years. You never know all the reasoning behind why these decisions are made. But these vehicles, many of which were made in Egypt and Venezuela, have had many problems that owners were still experiencing in 2017.

The big recall Chrysler announced in 2007 was for over 800,000 Jeep Liberty sport utility vehicles because of the potential loss of steering control. This recall occurred after Chrysler received 111 complaints about this problem. Chrysler admitted three reports of injuries from auto accidents because of the defect. In the complaints that have been made, the ball joint failed, dropping the vehicle’s front end onto one or both of the front tires.