Articles Posted in Discovery

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.

Goal number one when your client is giving a deposition is to do no harm.

The greatest harm your client can do in almost any personal injury case in his/her deposition is to get caught in a lie. Clients are most prone to “lie” about prior car accidents because they genuinely do not remember them. But a smart insurance company lawyer may turn an innocent failure to recall into a litmus test on the client’s credibility. As much as we as personal injury lawyers like to make the cases about ourselves – particularly when we get a great verdict, we all do it – the importance of our credibility/likability is a distant second to the importance to that of our client.

How can you solve the problem? Obviously, a good attorney spends time before the deposition discussing the issue with the client, explaining in very direct terms that prior medical history or claims history will be uncovered by any competent defense attorney or adjuster with access to a computer and/or the medical records. But, again, in some circumstances, the client may not remember whether they were injured on the job or made a claim for a car accident in which it involved them.

A few days ago, I wrote about a judge’s article entitled Alice in Discovery Land (A Practical Guide to Recurrent Discovery Problems) that appeared years ago in Maryland Litigator, quoting Judge Smith’s comment about the oxymoronic phrase independent medical exam.

Counsel on both sides of the aisle have their own unique problems. One of the enormous problems the insurance companies have is getting credible medical experts to testify at trial. They are in a catch-22: they need doctors who regularly testify because of the volume of cases they have, but doctors who will have spent much of their practice testifying for insurance companies have little credibility. As a result, most of their experts are deeply wedded to the insurance companies, a fact rarely lost on jurors.

When the defense lawyer asks for an IME, we send out a list of conditions before agreeing to the exam. We also subpoena the doctor’s records. In most cases, the doctor refused to respond to the subpoena because they do not want to reveal the extent to which they are wedded to litigation related work and, specifically, to the insurance companies. The defendant’s lawyer is forced to withdraw the expert.