Maryland Injury Law Center

November 19, 2007

Jury Trial with State Farm

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 Plaintiff’s case is that he had few doctor visits before complaining of the soft tissue injury related to the claim. The Defendant’s biggest weakness was their liability defense never made any sense. The Defendant was, however, elderly and very sympathetic. Because the jury is never told insurance will pay the claim, expect this to be a factor in the recovery’s amount even if they suspect there is insurance behind the Defendant.

The jury found for the plaintiff but awarded only a little over $16,000. This thrilled State Farm, and I became depressed for a few days. They won, and I lost. That is how we both saw it and marked our scorecards accordingly.

October 25, 2007

Predicting the Value of Medical Malpractice Cases

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

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 favor those medical malpractice lawyers who seek publication.

The theory is that payouts in these cases are predictable. The question is what variables should the calculus include. Interestingly, the company believes that there is not enough focus on the defendant in valuing medical malpractice cases, citing the following facts:

(1) The number of defendants affects value. The more defendants, the higher the total recovery in medical malpractice cases;

September 25, 2007

$4 Verdict in Anne Arundel County Drowning Case

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

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.

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.

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.

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.

May 18, 2007

Baltimore City Shoulder Dystocia Verdict

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

[I updated this post in 2020 with Baltimore-area shoulder dystocia verdicts and settlements at the bottom of this post.]

A Baltimore jury yesterday found a doctor responsible for the brain injury and death in 2003 in a shoulder dystocia case and awarded the child’s parents $8.1 million. The damages are limited to just over $2.1 million under Maryland law putting a cap on awards for pain and suffering.

During the delivery of the child at Mercy Hospital, the child’s shoulders became stuck in the birth canal. This condition, known as shoulder dystocia, occurs when the child’s head can clear but the shoulders require additional medical maneuvers for the child to be delivered. In shoulder dystocia cases, one shoulder of the baby usually is trapped behind the mother’s pelvis, obstructing the baby’s breathing. It is hard to conjure up a more horrific case. This Baltimore jury that heard all the evidence in this medical malpractice case determined the damages at $8.1 million. Why do we have a law in Maryland that only awards these Plaintiffs about one-fourth of what the jury believed was appropriate?