Maryland Injury Law Center

Maryland appellate court kicks malpractice case

Before the holidays, the Court of Special Appeals issued a new opinion dealing with medical malpractice actions.  The case, Puppolo, v. Adventist Healthace, Inc., et al., is a perfect example of how difficult it can be to litigate a medical malpractice claim when you don’t understand and/or abide by the procedural and statutory “rules” Maryland has in place.  (You can read the case here.)  I know that slogging through statutes can be really tedious and boring, but when it comes to med mal, there are no excuses.  You’ve just gotta do it.  Maybe this cautionary tale case will shed some light… Continue reading

The Maryland Court of Appeals decided Espina v. Prince George’s County  last week.  The opinion is not a good one if you care about justice.  

I have written here two times how awful governmental immunities are.   But I think the topic is inexhaustible, like Doris Kearns Goodwin digging even deeper into Lincoln’s life.  The unfairness of protecting government when they hurt someone is just plain wrong.  In 2014, they just make little sense. Virtually everyone agrees they lead to grave injustice.  Yet no one really cares. Continue reading

Are jurors just not smart enough?

Defense lawyer tries medical malpractice case in Frederick, Maryland. He loses big. $7 million verdict. Here’s what he says to the media after the verdict:

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California insurance law is far more generous than ours in Maryland

I’m glad to say that our firm has had several verdicts in recent years that exceeded the insurance policy of the at-fault driver.   In almost all these cases – there is one exception  – we made a demand for the insurance policy limits.    Why?  Because we knew they would not pay the policy limits, and we were trying to set up our bad faith case after an excess verdict.

Insurance companies have a duty to their insured to try and settle a case within policy limits if it is reasonable to do so.  In every Maryland case, we have had, the “reasonable to do so” never gets flushed out because the insurance company does the right thing and pays the policy.
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Three years ago when Reptile came out – the book that has revolutionized how many plaintiffs’ attorneys approach a tort case – I wrote what I thought was an interesting post about the use of religion at trial based on the research provided in the book.   The premise was that  the rules of Scripture are power rules that guide the thinking not only of the pious but  command authority as the “ultimate rules” for not only the faithful but the agnostic and even atheists.

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Does a PIP Claim Increase Your Insurance Premiums?

Many of us fear – some irrationally – our car insurance rising. Most people assume that making a PIP claim will lead to an increase in your insurance premiums.  In Maryland, they no longer can. This article explains our law.
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The Maryland Court of Appeals issued an important opinion helpful for plaintiffs’ lawyers, albeit attorneys who are not on top of their game for getting their case ready for trial. I just got back from vacation last week and found it interesting enough to put down the 1,000 things that I have to do and read it.
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New Maryland Intermediate Court Opinion

Business organization law is not my wheelhouse. It is not something I blog about often. But the Court of Special Appeals just issued a new opinion regarding personal liability for directors of unincorporated businesses that I think has implications for tort lawyers (although probably not my firm).

This breach of contract case involves the PRC (Pikesville Recreation Council), an unincorporated, nonprofit organization. From what I can gather, PRC provided recreational and educational programs to residents in the Pikesville area and was funded mostly by the registration fees that the organization charged (think community-wide soccer tournaments, among other things). PRC also ran a number of preschool programs and employed teachers contractually to teach the children who registered.
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