I had a jury trial in an auto accident case in Anne Arundel County against State Farm last week. It was a soft tissue injury case with over a year of treatment. It was a case we inherited from another lawyer who retired last year. The biggest weakness of the…
I have expressed my disdain for Maryland’s cap on non-economic damages many times on this blog. I read an interesting article in the University of Baltimore Law Forum on an issue to which I have never given much consideration: the impact of the cap on non-economic damages on women. In…
A post on the Illinois Trial Practice Blog discusses a product for malpractice attorneys called>MedMal Reports. This company generates a report based on the payout reported in the National Practitioner’s Data Bank. Reporting of settlements and verdicts is mandatory, so the data is not skewed the way published verdict reports…
The Maryland Court of Appeals issued an interesting opinion last week on Maryland’s assumption of the risk doctrine in American Powerlifting Association v. Cotillo. The Plaintiff, a Prince George’s County police officer, suffered injuries in a powerlifting contest at Patuxent High School in Calvert County, Maryland. He brought a negligence…
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…
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.…
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…
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…
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…
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…