The Maryland Court of Special Appeals decided Romero v. Brenes yesterday. This case involved a single-car accident that killed both passenger and driver. A Montgomery County trial court granted the Defendant’s attorney’s motion for judgment at the close of the passenger’s wrongful death case because the trial judge found that…
Whenever I prepare for giving an opening statement, as I am today, my head is filled with more advice that I have heard or read over the years than expletives Bill Belichick threw out last night. I am writing today about two issues: what you should wear to trial and…
Accident lawyers attempting to negotiate settlements with insurance companies view insurance companies as monolithic, i.e., “Insurance Company A is difficult’ or “Insurance Company B is easy to deal with on claims.” Sure, it is an oversimplification. Claims practices by different insurance companies vary from state to state and even from…
While not as fun as, say, baseball statistics in the pre-steroids era, I really enjoy looking at statistics on personal injury lawsuits. The Department of Justice just released a new report on personal injury lawsuit statistics (which I found via TortsProfBlog). The data, as always with this stuff, is older…
Sean Wajert’s MassTort Defense Blog (c/o Torts Prof Blog) has an interesting post on a new opinion by the Iowa Supreme Court on whether you can admit subsequent remedial measures in cases that sound both in negligence and strict liability. The Iowa court found that Plaintiff’s design defect and failure-to-warn…
Medical malpractice lawyers, victims’ advocacy groups, doctors (and their lobbyists), and insurance companies have produced a heretofore unprecedented spate of editorials on medical malpractice reform in the last few months. Even I’m bored with it. But a recent editorial in Salon is a little different because the message—that medical malpractice…
This morning I blogged about University of Maryland Medical Systems v. Waldt in one of the longest posts in Maryland Injury Law Center history. Apparently, considering my blog post and the criticisms in the post, the Maryland Court of Appeals withdrew the opinion. (Okay, maybe it did not happen quite…
The Maryland Court of Appeals reached a decision in University of Maryland Medical System v. Waldt, a case that is reverberating among medical malpractice lawyers in Maryland. (Note: In yet another incredible turn, the Maryland high court has – temporarily at least – withdrawn this opinion.) Yet the back story…
The Georgia Supreme Court recently ruled in Condra v. Atlanta Orthopaedic Group on an interesting issue in medical malpractice cases: can the standard-of-care medical expert be subject to cross-examination about what the expert would have done if the doctor had treated the patient? (If you are not interested in the…
After putting my kids to bed last night, I looked at Gregg Easterbrook’s Tuesday Morning Quarterback before going to bed. Easterbrook writes on a lot of different topics such as human happiness (an interesting-sounding book I’ve never read), global warming, science, space, theology, and so forth. So his column during…