Maryland Injury Law Center

January 21, 2015

Ford v. United States | New Maryland Malpractice Opinion

A U.S. federal court judge made a ruling on some motions that would interest Maryland medical malpractice attorneys. They deal with a motion for summary judgment and a pet interest of mine, holding the defendant’s feet to the fire when they give garbage answers to requests for admission.

This is a birth injury claim against Defendants Calvert Memorial Hospital of Calvert County, that hospital’s emergency room and emergency room doctor, and the United States. The government is a defendant for the care given at Andrews Air Force Base.

Plaintiff got prenatal care on Andrews Air Force Base. A month before delivering, the mom-to-be presented with high blood pressure and had laboratory studies with elevated proteins, symptoms that show some risk of preeclampsia. Three weeks later, the woman gives birth to her daughter at Calvert Memorial Hospital.

January 9, 2015

Medical Malpractice Settlement Formula? How to Value Cases

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

Most malpractice lawsuits in Maryland are resolved after negotiating through adversarial bargaining. At the end of the day, our clients only have two options: settle or go to trial. Sometimes, they do not even have two options. We have tried medical malpractice cases where there was no settlement offer.

Is There a Formula to Determine the Value of Medical Malpractice Cases?

There is a settlement formula to determine the value of a medical malpractice claim. The formula has four parts:

January 7, 2015

Fee Splitting or Referral Fees in Maryland Medical Malpractice Cases

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

Most of the medical malpractice cases Miller & Zois handles come from cases that are referred from other Maryland attorneys. These cases come from other lawyers who do not focus their practice on medical malpractice cases, or the size and the expenses in the case or the specific issues presented are such that getting other counsel involved makes the most sense.

What Type of Referring Lawyer Fee Splits Do You Do?

In these cases, we do a 70%-30% fee split with the referring law consistent with Maryland Rule 1.5 in medical negligence cases. Our firm fronts and bears the risk of all costs and expenses. I put that 70%-30% number right out there because fee splits always seem cloaked in mystery. The only information online that involves fee splits comes from appellate opinions. So we want to get it out there.

This post talks about how this works in Maryland, why this is actually a good system for victims and discusses a Maryland Court of Special Appeals case pending on this issue. If this post reminds potential referring lawyers that we handle medical malpractice cases and invites lawyers to refer cases to our law firm, all the better.

January 5, 2015

Who Is Defending Maryland Medical Malpractice Cases?

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

The medical malpractice arm of our law firm has continued to grow over the last 10 years. I think it is interesting to see who the defense lawyers are in these cases. It matters who you draw as defense counsel. You would think, as a plaintiff’s lawyer, you would like to draw the least competent counsel as possible.

There is some truth to this. Lazy and incompetent counsel sometimes miss key defenses and critical arguments that the health care providers should make. But this rule has a lot of exceptions. Defense lawyers who get behind the eight ball sometimes make it even harder on us. Because it is impossible to schedule depositions, get discovery responses, and otherwise push the case forward. You usually get to the same place in the end, but sometimes the workload doubles just because the other side is so unresponsive. Sometimes, particularly if you have a quality liability case, you are best served by having quality defense lawyers who do what it takes to properly defend the case.

December 17, 2014

Pre-Death Pain and Suffering | Required Proof in Maryland

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

Pre-impact fright and conscious pain and suffering in Maryland death cases

Many years ago, a jury awarded my partner Laura Zois’ client $4 million in a survival action claim. The sole evidence — the SOLE evidence — presented to the jury was that the decedent said “Oh s—!” before impact which caused his immediate death. Since that case, I have had a very aggressive view when it comes to pushing these claims. Because that case and other cases I have seen and tried show that juries take the most remote fear of grave harm or death as serious as they do any conscious pain and suffering. I think too many plaintiffs’ attorneys in Maryland are too quick to accept the premise that the victim’s estate cannot make a pre-impact fright or conscious pain and suffering claim. This post is about Maryland law in both pre-impact freight and conscious pain and suffering cases and why I think this helps the family’s victim recover substantial damages in wrongful death and survival action claims in Maryland.

November 17, 2014

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

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

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.