Maryland Injury Law Center

August 9, 2007

My Duel Life as a Legal Malpractice Defense Expert

One-hundred percent of our law firm’s practice is personal injury cases. We do not and will not take any defense cases even if we believe in the defendant’s case. Yet, last year I found myself on the other side of the coin as a defense expert. I served as a legal malpractice expert for a local defense firm on behalf of a plaintiffs’ personal injury lawyer in Towson. I believe this lawyer did not breach the standard of care according to his version of the facts (and, parenthetically; I believe the most logical version of the facts). In this case, under the Plaintiff’s version of the case, the lawyer committed legal malpractice.

While I did not have the slightest trepidation about taking this case or the expert opinions I expressed, it was an odd experience to be back on the defense side for the first time in over six years. Regrettably, from an experience standpoint, the case settled before they deposed me. It would have been an educational experience because the legal malpractice lawyer who would have deposed me is a skilled and well-prepared lawyer, who would have been effective in challenging my opinions. Taking a unique role in a case changes your perspective, and I think helps you think more creatively about your cases. (Similarly, I have been a law professor for over 10 years. It would interest to be a student again after all the exams I have graded over the years. I think being a professor would make me a better student.)

Believe me, I am all in favor of plaintiffs’ personal injury lawyers suing other personal injury lawyers when one of us has breached the standard of care. The whole idea of lawyers “sticking together” is both absurd and wrong. Our lawyers handle legal malpractice cases that involved a catastrophic personal injury case. But I also think there is an obligation to come forward and testify on behalf of a fellow personal injury lawyer if you believe the lawyer has not breached the standard of care and committed legal malpractice.

August 3, 2007

Legal Climate: How Does Your State Compare?

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

The Institute for Legal Reform apparently ranks states in terms of the legal climate for businesses. The study is flawed. The results are from a survey of the 1,599 in-house general counsel lawyers working for larger corporations – not exactly an unbiased group. For personal injury lawyers, it is also worth noting that insurance companies, whose votes should receive more weight in considering the tort climate, made up only 5% of the total sample. I suspect most of these companies focus on employment law claims, which are a very different animal from tort claims. Still, with these caveats, I think there is at least something telling about the study. Delaware, as always, was the clear “winner” in the poll. Here are the rest of the rankings:

2. Minnesota

3. Nebraska

July 14, 2007

Wrongful Death Settlements and Verdicts in Maryland, D.C. and Virginia

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

Metro Verdicts Monthly’s graph this month is median settlements and verdicts in wrongful death claims in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. The median wrongful death settlement in Maryland is $850,000. In Virginia and the District of Columbia, the medians are $675,000 and $750,000, respectively.

Previous blog posts have discussed motor vehicle accident and medical malpractice wrongful death case numbers.

For attorneys handling these cases, I used to think this kind of information falls under the category of “fascinating information but I have no idea what to do with it.” But I have found presenting adjusters with objective information sometimes helps the adjuster better appreciate the value of a case, particularly in truck collision cases where the adjusters are typically in other jurisdictions and do not fully appreciate the value of a certain case in your jurisdiction.

July 13, 2007

Losing

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

The Maryland Personal Injury Lawyer Blog focuses on providing tips and information for personal injury lawyers. Today, I’m using it save me the $200 it would cost to go to a good board-certified psychiatrist.

If you read this blog regularly, you note that I often let our successes slip into this blog, a million-dollar settlement here, a million-dollar verdict there, and so forth. Oops. Over the last few years, we have had an amazing run. Fantastic settlements and our verdicts have typically been many, many times the offers we had before trial. I could not be prouder of what we have accomplished for our clients.

Yesterday, this run came to a very bitter end in a trial in Prince George’s County that I will never forget. Defendant pulled out from a stop sign and hit our client, a 36-year-old man (with a beautiful wife and three kids), on the favored road. He was on a motorcycle and witnesses claimed he passed some vehicles on the left and the right before the accident on a one-lane road (the widest one lane road you will ever see in your life).

July 5, 2007

Dealing with MAIF Adjusters in Car Accident Settlements

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

As regular readers of this blog are aware, I have been a critic of the MAIF because of the speed with which it reviews cases, the offers it makes which almost invariably cause reasonable car accident lawyers to file suit because the client’s best interests demand a lawsuit and because it invariably makes its lawyers (and our lawyers) jump through discovery hoop after discovery hoop in large cases before offering its policy limits on the eve of trial when the policy limits should have offered from jump street. In 2015, MAIF changed their trade name to “Maryland Auto Insurance.” But they are still the same company with the same problem.

In this Baltimore Business Journal article, MAIF’s executive director since 2004, M. Kent Crabbe, talks about some challenges MAIF faces as an “insurance company” operating under a somewhat unique and complex regulatory scheme, including why it may be more difficult for MAIF to recruit and retain quality people. I put “insurance company” in quotes not derisively (well, kind of) but because technically under the Maryland Insurance Code, MAIF is not an insurance company. Really, I think the bigger problem at MAIF is not the people but its rigid approach to handling claims. They should give their adjusters more authority to pay the right value on the claims.

But rigid comes with the territory. Remember, MAIF operates as an independent agency of the state. So is government in every way that matters. The purpose of MAIF is to be the “insurer of last resort.” MAIF is required to only accept applications from Maryland residents who were either refused coverage by at least two private insurers or who have had their insurance policy canceled. So we are dealing with the worst drivers with the vast majority driving around with $30,000 per person insurance coverage limits. It is a template for disaster and our car accident attorneys have seen this meal regularly served. We have had death cases where all the insurance available was MAIF’s lousy $30,000.

June 28, 2007

Bad Faith Settlement

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

Princeton Insurance Co. has agreed to settle a bad faith claim for $20,000,000 for a tavern brought on behalf of a tavern that was found liable for $75 million in a Dram Shop Act case. The tavern assigned its rights to pursue the bad faith claim to the plaintiff in the original case after the insurer refused to settle for $1 million. The settlement is the largest to date in a Pennsylvania bad faith case.

June 27, 2007

Medical Malpractice Reform: The Most Important Thing on the Planet?

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

Yesterday, an article by Brendan Kearney in the Maryland Daily Record reported on an insurance company’s plan to require its doctors to have patients sign waivers that limit both their rights and the amount of their damages. It starts out like this: “Eugene Rosov is passionate about what he does. ‘I live for this. It is the most important thing on the planet for me,’ Rostov said. ‘Pray God I’m not wrong.’ Was he talking about global warming or the war on terror? Try medical malpractice insurance. Rosov thinks the current method of settling malpractice claims is unfair… and jurors are not educated enough to understand the issues.”

Okay, where do I begin? The most important thing on the planet is medical malpractice policies that require doctors to limit patients’ rights? I’m speechless. Not just does this show a stunning lack of perspective, but it underscores the degree to which our opponents are fighting to limit the rights of medical malpractice victims.

Equally insane is the notion that juries are not smart enough to decide medical malpractice cases. Juries are too stupid to decide whether a doctor has committed medical malpractice, but are smart enough to consider whether the rule of reason should apply to an antitrust case or whether there has been a patent infringement. This stuff is all easy, right? I wonder if Mr. Rosov thinks juries should be able to decide which criminals to put to death.

June 26, 2007

Defendant’s Motion to Compel IME

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

Last week, a well-respected defense lawyer told one of our lawyers they possessed the Maryland Trial Lawyers Association’s “Handbook,” which spells out the terms for a defense requested medical examination. This “Handbook” has made its way into a Motion to Compel a Physical Examination, specifically including this “MTLA Handbook” as an exhibit to the motion. By this inclusion, I assume this is an authoritative source of legal guidance for the court on this discovery matter.

Now back to reality. Maryland Trial Lawyers Association does not have a “Handbook” on defense medical exams. Instead, it is just a copy of the link from our website setting forth our suggested conditions for a defense medical exam. Which we don’t even use anymore!

I think it is funny that this is being represented as some guide to fighting medical exams. I am glad people are using the Maryland Personal Injury Lawyer Help Center. My partner told me last week that a defense lawyer she spoke to said they often get motions from other lawyers copying our sample motions. The lawyer said they call them “Miller & Zois” motions.

June 25, 2007

Roy Pearson v. Drycleaners Verdict: $0

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

Justice was served in Roy Pearson’s lawsuit against his dry cleaners today. A District of Columbia judge ruled that Mr. Pearson would get somewhat less than the $54 million he sought in his lost pants lawsuit: less than zero (the judge awarded court costs to the dry cleaners). This news came as a surprise to… well, no one. The case relieved tort lawyers because the complete debacle was making all plaintiff lawyers look bad by six degrees of separation connection.

Mr. Pearson had sued Custom Cleaners because Pearson said the cleaners lost an expensive pair of his pants. His lawsuit claimed that signs in the dry cleaners that read “same day service” and “satisfaction guaranteed” were misleading to the consumers.

It is 2019 now and this case still gets attention.

June 16, 2007

Roy Pearson’s Lawsuit Against His Dry Cleaner Has the Attention of the Country

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

This week has been an all-time record for traffic on the Maryland Personal Injury Lawyer Blog. Is this because of lawyers needing to know my thoughts on the nuances of handling personal injury cases? No. [EDITOR’S UPDATE: There is a verdict: click here for a blog post on this case’s VERDICT.]

For those of you just tuning in to this nonsense, Administrative Law Judge Roy Pearson is suing his dry cleaner for millions of dollars after they lost his pants. On the stand this week, Judge Pearson — I tried, I can’t do it — Mr. Pearson cried on the stand as he recalled the horror of losing the pants from his precious blue and maroon suit.

Mr. Pearson claims to have owned exactly five suits, all Hickey Freemans which do not come cheap, one for each day of the work week. But after putting on a few pounds, his suit rotation system crashed when he picked up his newly altered suits from the dry cleaner and could not find one pair of pants.