Maryland Injury Law Center

September 25, 2007

$4 Verdict in Anne Arundel County Drowning Case

The Maryland Daily Record yesterday reported on a $4 million verdict an Anne Arundel County jury awarded to the parents of a 5-year-old boy who drowned in the Crofton Country Club pool in 2006. The parents of Connor Freed sued D.R.D. Pool Service, Inc, who managed the pool for the country club. The boy was at the pool with some family friend, who found him floating in the pool after a trip to use the bathroom. The suit alleged that the pool was inadequately supervised by only one 16-year-old lifeguard who had 3 weeks’ experience. It further alleged that they incorrectly performed CPR and that they should have used a defibrillator. (D.R.D. filed a cross-claim against the family friend but the jury found him not liable.)

Interestingly, a pretrial ruling dismissed the parents’ claim for the child’s conscious pain and suffering. I do not know all the facts, but unless he was unconscious when he hit the water, I cannot imagine how there could not be a survival action for conscious pain and suffering. [This ruling later was reversed.]

The jury award was 2,000,706 for each of the child’s parents. The 706 represents the child’s birthday of July 6th. That gives me goosebumps. Regrettably, the real recovery will only be about $1,020,000 (plus economic damages) because that is the cap for non-economic damages in a wrongful death case with two or more beneficiaries.

September 24, 2007

Med Mutual’s $68.6 Million Surplus: Was There Ever a Medical Malpractice Insurance Premium Crisis?

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

The Baltimore Sun reports that the extension of a state program that subsidizes doctors’ malpractice insurance premiums is no longer in need considering a $68.6 million surplus reported by the state’s leading malpractice insurer, Medical Mutual Liability Insurance Society of Maryland.

Earlier this week, the new state Insurance Commissioner, Ralph S. Tyler, ordered Med Mutual not to proceed with plans to pay out the $68.6 million as a dividend until they determine how much should the State of Maryland receive to repay the $80 million paid out to subsidize doctors.

The Baltimore Sun reports that medical malpractice payouts in Maryland peaked in 2003 and have declined every year since 2003. The number of paid medical malpractice claims in Maryland has dropped 32 percent in the past three years, 50% more than the national average.

September 20, 2007

Are Medical Malpractice Verdicts Fair to Doctors?

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

The debate over medical malpractice tort reform in Maryland has always been sung to the same tune: “Do we need to limit runaway juries by impeding their ability to award damages they deem appropriate?” The question implies that justice is not being served because juries are (1) wrongly siding against doctors on the question of medical negligence, and (2) awarding more in damages that justice requires. Both the doctors and their insurance companies and the medical malpractice lawyers and victim’s advocates argue their respective points through examples.

In this battle to tell the story that tells the story, the doctors will prevail because they illustrate the easiest of scenarios to latch onto mentally – excessive verdicts. It is hard to extrapolate anything from a zero verdict in a serious medical malpractice case because you would have to determine whether there was negligence. This would take way too much time for Joe Public.

(I do not say this condescendingly; there are lots of societal issues where I am the rather lazy Joe Public myself. We are cannot spend our time getting our minds around every issue of the day. Nor should we. We should, however, all be investing the time to figure out what is going on in Iraqi. Joe Public has not spent time on this issue either, and for this, he deserves scorn. I would continue on but I’m already digressing way more than I normally do or should.)

September 17, 2007

New Maryland Law on Quick Settlements

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

One new bill that came out of Annapolis this year, and will become Maryland law on October 1, 2007, aimed at limiting one of the predatory insurance practices: the “don’t hire a lawyer and I’ll give you a quick settlement” tactic. Among the major auto insurance carriers in Maryland, I do not see GEICO, Allstate, or State Farm doing this aggressively or systematically; Nationwide does it a good bit, and Progressive does it with absolute zeal.

This bill will not limit the practice itself but it will give injury victims not represented by a Maryland lawyer the opportunity to void any release signed within 30 days of an accident within 60 days provided certain met conditions such as providing written notice and returning the proceeds.

To Progressive’s credit, it does not appear that they are nearly as aggressive in very serious injury cases, but it amazes me to hear from my personal injury clients the lengths to which Progressive will induce quick settlements in smaller cases. Progressive adjusters show up on the injury victims’ doorstep (apparently every adjuster is smiling and friendly) with a checkbook eager to “make this thing right.”

September 5, 2007

$3.5 Medical Malpractice Award Upheld in Washington, DC

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

The District of Columbia Court of Appeals recently upheld a $3.5 million malpractice verdict after a 12-day jury trial against a Bethesda, Maryland obstetrician/gynecologist and Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, DC. After the verdict against both the doctor and the hospital, Sibley settled with the Plaintiff, but the doctor appealed.

The case stemmed from a dilation and curettage (D&C as it is commonly called) during which the OB/GYN inadvertently perforated the Plaintiff’s uterus, causing over three quarts of toxic bowel content to leak into her peritoneal cavity. The leakage caused her internal organs to be “continually bathed,” as the court called it, in infectious material, which led to multiple permanent complications.

Get malpractice verdicts and settlements in D.C. (updated January 10, 2019)

August 24, 2007

Silence at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

The New York Times reports on recent rules set up by chief administrator Nicole R. Nason at National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, prohibiting officials at the agency from going on the record with reporters. Without special permission, the NHTSA only allows agency officials to only speak with reporters to provide background information.

I am sure keeping everyone on the same page is the politically astute play. But is that Ms. Nason’s purpose? Or is it to protect the safety of our citizens on public highways? Obviously, the free flow of safety information will keep reporters investigating whether manufacturers are making safe vehicles.

The Times notes that this is a 35-year-old lawyer in charge of keeping our nation’s highways safe. While I am all for lawyers being qualified to do anything and everything, I have to question whether she was the best candidate for this job. Ms. Nason served a few years as the Assistant Secretary of Transportation for governmental affairs. Why the leap to this position so quickly with such a minimal transportation background? I assume her quick rise was in part because of her connection to former CIA Director Porter J. Goss, for whom she worked as communications director when he was a congressman. (Looking back over this post in 2019, I have to say we did not have it so bad compared to now.)

August 23, 2007

Truck Accident Settlements and Verdicts

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

A recent Jury Verdict Research study revealed some interesting settlement and verdict data regarding truck accident cases. The most frequently cited injury in truck accident cases, which is probably true for auto accident cases, is the back strain. Back strains, according to the study, drew a median verdict of $15,000.00.

Brain injury cases, which accounted for only six percent of truck accident verdicts, had a median verdict of $1.3 million. Knee injuries accounted for four percent of the cases and had a median verdict of approximately $85,000.00.

The study also broke the verdict down into the truck accident collision which occurred and the median verdicts by type. The head-on collision had the highest median verdict of $275,000 and the “backing” collision (where a truck backs up into another vehicle) had the lowest of $33,000. The overall verdicts studied had a median verdict of $100,000.

August 22, 2007

Baltimore Steroid Disc Injection Malpractice Verdict

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

The Maryland Daily Record reports on a Carroll County electrician who was recently awarded $2.3 million in a medical malpractice case by a Baltimore City jury. After a weeklong trial, the jury found the defendant doctor negligent for piercing the plaintiff’s spinal cord during a pain relief procedure.

Steroid Injections at Issue

Doctors have used therapeutic steroid injections for years. The standard of care requires that any injectable substance that a physician puts into a patient is safe, sterile, and prepared to accepted industry standards. The standard of care also requires the doctor to know where the needle is going in the patients, which should be far removed from the spinal cord itself.

August 16, 2007

1-800-Flowers Lawsuit

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

A man in Texas has sued 1-800-Flowers for $1 million for telling his wife he was cheating on her.

Leroy Greer’s Complaint states that he purchased flowers for his girlfriend through 1-800-Flowers. He claims to have specifically asked 1-800-Flowers to keep his purchase private. Mr. Greer claims they assured him that the company’s privacy policy would protect him. Apparently, 1-800-Flowers pledges not to share personal information with “third parties.” 1-800-Flowers sent a thank-you note to his home, and naturally, his wife saw it and called the company which faxed her a copy of the invoice for the flowers.

Mr. Greer, an insufferable romantic, sent a note to his mistress that said, “Just wanted to say that I love you and you mean the world to me!” How sweet! After learning of the affair, Mr. Greer’s wife demanded a $300,000 divorce settlement besides child support, according to Mr. Greer’s lawyer. Greer’s Complaint seeks $1 million for breach of contract and deceptive trade practices.

August 10, 2007

Health Courts in Maryland

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

The Maryland State Bar Association annual meeting had a discussion group on a topic entitled, “A Cure for the Courts: Are Health Courts the Rx for Maryland?” The idea behind health courts is that specially trained judges would hear medical malpractice cases in Maryland, without juries present, deciding damages based on “schedules” for non-economic damages.

There are scores of problems with health courts. The most obvious is that the pesky little Seventh Amendment which guarantees a right to a jury. The guiding principle behind citizen juries is regular people deciding what constitutes acceptable behavior and what the damages should be for a person’s injuries. Because medical malpractice cases are frequently catastrophic injury cases, this is all the more reason the community values matter so much in achieving a fair outcome. Government chosen “experts” made specialized health court decisions that do not reflect the values of the local community regarding either liability or damages. The framers of our Constitution feared these kinds of concerns, reflected in the Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial.

I understand this panel was sparsely attended. This is not surprising. There is virtually no interest in health courts in Maryland, not even from medical malpractice defense lawyers, who you might have thought would have attended this discussion in droves.