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.

November 5, 2007

Does Maryland’s Cap on Noneconomic Damages Discriminate Against Women

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

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 the article, Maryland Tort Damages: A Form of Sex-Based Discrimination 37 U. Balt. L.F. 97 (2007), University of Baltimore law professor Rebecca Korzec argues that the statutory cap on non-economic damages in Maryland, although facially neutral, has the unintended consequence that it disproportionately disadvantages women.

The essential premise is that limiting non-economic damages disproportionately affects female litigants, because women earn less, largely because they spend more time on unpaid child care around the house. Limiting pain and suffering damages does not allow juries to award fair compensation. Non-economic damage caps solidify bias by rewarding economic losses over non-economic ones, intensifying the gender bias of tort law.

Professor Korzec notes that physical injuries to women may not result in significant damages awards, because of some injuries specific to women. A “soccer mom” who suffers an injury requiring a hysterectomy, for example, may cause little economic harm. Restricting or limiting her non-economic damages may cause an insignificant award of damages.

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;

October 23, 2007

New Maryland Assumption of the Risk Opinion

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

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 claim in Calvert County against the American Powerlifting Association and the Calvert County Board of Education. Essentially, the Plaintiff claimed that two Patuxent High School students, who spotted the Plaintiff during his effort to bench press 530 pounds, could have prevented his injuries. A Calvert County Circuit Court judge granted the Defendant’s motion for summary judgment because the Plaintiff assumed the risk of his injuries.

The Court of Special Appeals affirmed on all counts except the negligence claim grounded in allegations of improper preparatory instruction of the spotter. The court’s reasoning was that the Plaintiff did not know the spotters were improperly trained, and because their improper training presented an enhanced risk not normally incidental to powerlifting, Plaintiff could not have assumed the risk.

The Maryland Court of Appeals disagreed, finding that the assumption of the risk doctrine barred all of Plaintiff’s claims because any person of normal intelligence knows or should know that one risk inherent in powerlifting is that the bar may fall and injure the participant. Continue reading

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.