Maryland Injury Law Center

April 5, 2010

Jay Hancock’s Blog on Maryland Accident Lawyers

The Baltimore Sun’s Jay Hancock continues, improperly, to receive a license by the Baltimore Sun to blog about tort claims while having a limited understanding of Maryland tort claims. And maybe it is just me, but this is a terrible idea.

Minimum Insurance Limits

He notes in his blog some great news: traffic deaths for Maryland in 2009 were 550, which is 550 too many but down from 614 in 2007 and 707 in 1990, even though Maryland has many more drivers on the road today than it did in 1990. Hancock assumes that we “can be reasonably sure that traffic deaths are a good proxy for accidents, injuries and lawsuits generally,” concluding that Maryland accident lawyers “want a raise” by increasing minimal auto insurance policies drivers must maintain in Maryland.

March 25, 2010

Ford Class Action Denied

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

A Maryland District Court has denied a class action on behalf of Maryland residents who own certain model years of Ford Explorers, Mercury Mountaineers, and Ford Windstars.

This is not a personal injury lawsuit. Plaintiffs’ lawyers claimed front seats in the class vehicles are defective because they are prone to collapse rearward in moderate speed rear-impact collisions. In fact, the proposed class action would exclude everyone who has suffered an injury.

The plaintiffs’ suggested class is individuals who own vehicles that cannot withstand 20,000 inch-pounds of torque without deforming backward. (Admittedly, I don’t fully understand this but let’s proceed on pretending that I do.)

March 24, 2010

MAIF

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

The Maryland Daily Record has an interesting article today on the Maryland Automobile Insurance Fund (MAIF).

For out-of-state readers, MAIF is a unique animal: a state-run insurance company for drivers that cannot get car insurance from private insurers. Most states deal with this problem by forcing private insurance companies to insure high-risk drivers. In Maryland, we have created a huge state-run insurance company to insure the risk.

To me, MAIF is like stare decisis. I don’t think we would decide all over again to create a state agency. One good piece of evidence: no other state has followed suit and created their own version of MAIF. But now that we have it, there is no inertia to tear it down.

The Daily Record article talks about efforts in the Maryland legislature to essentially stop MAIF from acting as an insurance company. What’s the problem? Insurance companies are threatened by MAIF because they are stealing market share. One of the lobbyists quoted in the article complaining about MAIF works for Agency Insurance, which also insurers a lot of high-risk drivers. This isn’t the first time an insurance company that markets to high-risk drivers has complained about MAIF. (See this September 2, 2008 post.)

These same insurance companies also grab on to the up-with-people populist sentiment against bonuses for anyone connected to public funding, pointing to the $1.2 million in bonuses MAIF paid last year. They jump on the fact that MAIF Executive Director M. Kent Krabbe is the one who recommended the bonuses to the board and that Krabbe got $36,000 for himself.

I’m as big of a MAIF critic as anyone is. I think they are just plain obstructionists for paying valid claims and I think their approach often costs them money. They won’t try a high-risk case, but they also won’t offer their policy limits until after they spend a fortune in legal fees defending the case.

I have said in the past I don’t disagree with insurance companies’ tactics of playing hardball with personal injury lawyers to maximize their profits. Too many attorneys settle at the first sight of money or a potential trial. But hanging around in a wrongful death case – which they have done multiple times with us – when I know they are just going to offer the policy before trial – is just a poor business strategy. Good companies have over one gear. MAIF just has the one. At some point, turning the boat north and speeding up when there is an iceberg in your path is a terrible idea. Particularly when your plan is to jump off when the iceberg gets real close. Continue reading

March 23, 2010

Baltimore Lead Paint Lawsuit to Continue

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

The Maryland Court of Appeals found today in a 5-2 opinion in a lead paint case that an individual member of a Maryland limited liability corporation (LLC) can be personally liable for torts committed on behalf of the LLC.

The case, Allen v. Dackman, is a classic Baltimore lead paint case, another saga in the tragedy of children suffering brain injuries as the result of ingesting chipping, flaking, and/or peeling lead-based paint.

The owner defendant sought refuge from personal liability because his acts were on behalf of his creatively named LLC, Hard Assets. The trial judge granted summary judgment. The Maryland Court of Special Appeals, in an opinion by Judge Zarnoch, affirmed:

March 17, 2010

Lawyer v. Lawyer Lawsuit Decided By Maryland Court of Appeals

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

In a 6-1 opinion, the Maryland Court of Appeals decided Blondell v. Littlepage, affirming the Court of Special Appeals decision which rejected a tort and breach of contract lawsuit brought by a lawyer against a malpractice lawyer regarding a case he referred to her.

The lawyer referred a cancer misdiagnosis case involving an allegedly misread mammogram to a malpractice lawyer. Both lawyers agreed to a fee split. The original lawyer had already filed the malpractice lawsuit on behalf of the Plaintiff, before referring the case out. I’m not sure what the referring lawyer was thinking when he filed suit. Perhaps he was hoping the case would settle or maybe he later decided it would better serve the client if they were with a lawyer who focuses on malpractice cases. The court does not show the reason for the referral.

Anyway, the case settled for a lot less than the pretrial judge recommended, which upset the referring lawyer, as did the suggestion allegedly made by the malpractice lawyer to the client, that the referring lawyer’s failure to timely file the case with the court decreased the settlement value of the case. The malpractice lawyer gave the client names of legal malpractice lawyers to bring a claim against the referring lawyer. Continue reading

March 16, 2010

Minimum Limits for Maryland Auto Accident Insurance

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

Tomorrow, the Maryland House of Representatives will vote on House Bill 825 which would raise the minimum limits of automobile coverage from $20,000.00/$40,000.00 to $30,000.00/$60,000.00.

Is $30,000 enough coverage for a significant accident? Of course not. Maryland has had 20/40 limits since 1972. This is 102,000/204,000 in 2010 dollars. But Rome was not built in a day, and this bill is a good step in the right direction.

As odd as it is for me to be carrying water for insurance companies, the only way to protect yourself from an uninsured or underinsured motorist is to make sure you have adequate uninsured motorist coverage. The relatively modest increase in premium is worth the additional protection.

March 14, 2010

Medical Errors and Admitting Mistakes

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

The New York Times has a story about encouraging doctors to admit their own mistakes. The UCLA surgeon who wrote the article does not contend that admitting medical mistakes should take the place of civil accountability. In fact, she suggests – as some recent literature has showed – that being forthcoming about medical errors may decrease the number of medical malpractice lawsuits.

I’ll admit that while I was reading this story I was circling around ready to pounce when the author suggested that we needed to eliminate malpractice lawsuits to get doctors to freely admit mistakes. So let’s just pretend, channeling my inner Glenn Beck, the author made that contention so I can refute it. In my defense, I’m not exactly creating a straw man, something I loathe to do. We have made this argument countless times, that it is safer for patients for health care providers to treat patients in a lovely environment where there is no risk of responsibility for medical errors.

First, let’s admit that we are all loathed to admit mistakes. I don’t think to take away the risk of a malpractice lawsuit – for which the doctor has insurance in most cases – is going to substantially change the frequency of admission of medical errors.

Where is the justice in being exculpated for causing a life-altering injury because you admit you did something wrong? If a driver crosses the center line and kills someone, can we just move on if the driver admits a mistake? (Bonus argument: accidents are a “known risk” of driving a car, right?) How about if personal injury lawyers who blow a statute of limitations can avoid responsibility by making the grandiose admission that it is all their fault? Wouldn’t that help lawyers understand their mistakes? What? Lawyers should buy a calendar? Well, yeah, that would be an excellent idea too.

March 11, 2010

Dram Shop in Maryland

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

A wrongful death lawsuit has been filed against a Chattanooga, Tennessee bar after a car accident killed a woman just a few days before Christmas. The case is an interesting twist on the classic dram shop case. The suit alleges that the bar gave its employees free alcohol and allowed one man to leave the bar intoxicated. The employee stayed at the bar and drank “free alcohol” after his shift ended at 3 a.m. Around 7:00 a.m., the defendant struck and killed a pedestrian, an employee on her way to work at Unum Insurance. The defendant, stand-up guy that he apparently is, fled the scene and tried to fake a carjacking. Apparently this is an insurmountable stunt to pull off when you are drunk.

What really adds teeth to the Plaintiff’s wrongful death lawsuit is a city ordinance prohibiting bar workers from drinking where they work, even when off duty. Violating the ordinance was a factor in causing this woman’s death. If the case goes to trial, there will be arguments by defense lawyers about the purpose and intent of the statute and whether this was the harm that the ordinance was trying to avoid. But I would suspect it was at least a purpose, if not the purpose, of the statute.

Maryland has rejected dram shop and social host liability in DWI accident claims. Going against the grain as a parent and lawyer who handles accident cases, I have believed and written in the past I oppose dram shop liability claims in Maryland.

I’m not so sure anymore. I would like to see data as to the number of wrongful deaths that occur in Maryland from DWI/DUI accidents where the person became intoxicated at a bar, or even at a bar where they are employed. The more salient question is one on which we will never get a definitive answer: how many deaths have occurred as the result of a server in a bar or restaurant who knows a patron (or employee) is drunk but does nothing to stop them? Continue reading

March 9, 2010

Can Insurance Defendants Lay Low at Trial?

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

I disagree with many of the philosophical views presented at Point of Law and Overlawyered. Then why do I read both blogs every day? Because they are informative, well-presented posts that make me occasionally question my own views. I hope to have you as a reader of the Maryland Injury Law Center and I hope my blog does for you what Point of Law and Overlawyered does for me.

Insurance companies hate being named in an uninsured motorist case. Why? Because unlike most car accident trials, if the jury knows an insurance company is paying the damages, jurors become less concerned that the defendant is footing the bill themselves. Jurors intuitively expect there is insurance available to cover the verdict, but they are never sure. Frequently, I have had jurors ask me after the trial if the defendant has to pay the verdict. “That nice Mr. Smith does not have to pay this personally, does he?”

In Maryland, the law is clear that in a straight uninsured motorist case without the tort defendant taking part in the trial, the insurance company may be named. The definitive case on this is King v. State Farm. In that case, a pedestrian Plaintiff appealed an unsatisfactory jury verdict in Baltimore City in an underinsured motorist case where the tort defendant had offered their policy limits (the verdict was less than the underlying policy). The Maryland Court of Special Appeals reversed because the trial judge did not allow the Plaintiff to identify the fact that the defendant was an insurance company.

March 1, 2010

Personal Injury Settlements in Maryland: What Portion Is Marital Property?

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

The Maryland Court of Special Appeals addressed last week an issue that our personal injury clients in malpractice and accident cases have occasionally expressed: is my settlement or verdict my money or marital money I have to share with my spouse?

In Murray v. Murray, the court was faced with, ironically I guess, a lawyer who had settled after suing her former law firm alleging that the firm engaged in discriminatory and retaliatory practices in firing her. (I would have been interested in learning more about the underlying lawsuit.) You know the rest of the story. The settlement came after she and her husband separated, but before they divorced, and the lawyer spouse wanted all the money for herself.

The Maryland Court of Special Appeals found that the portion of a settlement that compensates a claimant spouse for lost wages or earning capacity during the marriage, medical expenses paid from marital funds, or for joint loss of consortium, is marital property subject to fair distribution. Pain and suffering damages are not marital property.