Last week, a Baltimore County jury awarded a $2.3 million jury verdict in a stroke misdiagnosis medical malpractice suit in Towson.
The trial before Baltimore County Circuit Court Judge Dana M. Levitz took six days, and the jury deliberated for seven hours before returning a verdict, according to Plaintiff’s medical malpractice lawyer.
Yesterday’s USA Today ran a story about the often preventable tragedy of undiagnosed heart attacks. It told the story of James Pettry, who woke early one morning short of breath and sweating profusely. His wife dialed 911. The paramedics gave Mr. Pettry oxygen and aspirin and then used an electrocardiogram machine to examine the heart’s electrical function. They believed he had a heart attack and took him 3 miles to the hospital. The emergency room doctor disagreed. The doctor ran some tests, diagnosed him with anxiety, and sent Mr. Pettry home nearly five hours later.
We all know where this story is going. Mr. Pettry died the next day, joining the list of thousands every year who die every year from heart attacks left undetected. In fact, researchers from New England Medical Center in Boston reported in the New England Journal of Medicine in April 2000 that emergency room doctors mistakenly send home one in 50 heart attack victims. Other studies have documented higher rates of missed heart attack diagnosis.
The defendant says that his patient died from chronic heart disease that had no connection to the symptoms that landed him in the ER.
More and more personal injury lawyers in Maryland accident cases are doing battle over the ‘independent’ medical examination. Attorneys argue over everything from who should conduct the examination, how far the plaintiff should have a drive for the examination, to more substantive issues such as the examining doctor’s financial records. However, one thing that plaintiff personal injury lawyers sometimes overlook is the fact that their client may have already had such a medical examination before they even became involved in the case if the case involves an uninsured motorist or used PIP coverage.
Most insurance policies have a provision whereby the insurance company can ask for the policyholder to attend a medical examination with a physician of its choosing before the insured receives payments. This is can be used as a condition precedent to any insured receiving PIP benefits or uninsured motorist benefits. Does Maryland law allow it? No one really knows for sure.
The Maryland accident lawyer must be careful where PIP has already been paid or where uninsured motorist coverage applies. Often, the insurance claims adjuster has a copy of the report compiled by the insurance company’s doctor months or even years before it must be disclosed to the plaintiff’s lawyer (for example, before a suit has been filed or before discovery answers are due).
More often than ever before, our lawyers are having difficultly getting timely answers to discovery from defense lawyers. I do not think this is some nefarious plot. Rather, I think defense lawyers are used to answering discovery whenever they feel like it because no one holds their feet to the fire.
As a matter of practice, attorneys should send out a letter as soon as the discovery is late. Not to be difficult for the sake of being difficult but to make sure that the lawyer has complied with Maryland Rule 2-431, which does not allow the filing of discovery motions until there has been attempts to resolve it and a certificate under the rule accompanies the motion). What I see happening is that lawyers let discovery failures go and when they finally realize there is a problem, they have not complied with the letter or spirit of Maryland Rule 2-431.
I think judges are becoming more serious about the spirit of Maryland Rule 2-431 in trying to resolve discovery disputes. I attached one letter that requested discovery in a motion to compel in a Prince George’s County wrongful death/survival action case and the motions judge’s law clerk called me to ask if this was the only letter I had written. Fortunately, I had written several letters. But the point is lawyers in Maryland really need to push the opposing lawyer for discovery as opposed to writing a single form letter and then filing a motion.
The cap on pain and suffering damages in Maryland for claims arising after today has increased to $680,000. This is also the maximum cap on any non-medical malpractice wrongful death case if there is only one claimant. The wrongful death cap with two or more beneficiaries in a non-medical malpractice case is now $1,020,000.
The pain and suffering cap in Maryland in medical malpractice cases as the result of a bill that the General Assembly passed last year remains at $650,000. This is also the maximum cap on medical malpractice wrongful death cases if there is only one claimant. The wrongful death cap with two or more beneficiaries in medical malpractice cases that arise after today is $812,500.
I provide data from Jury Verdict Research frequently on this blog because I think it is helpful for personal injury lawyers to see the national prevalence of specific classes of cases. Below is a list of recovery percentages in truck accident cases that go to trial:
| Broadside Collisions | 61% |
| Head-On Collisions | $71% |
| Intersection Collisions | 58% |
| Multiple Vehicle Collisions | 73% |
| No Contact Accidents | 52% |
| Truck, Overall | 60% |
Jury Verdict Research also offers statistics on the median compensatory awards for a few different categories of truck accidents:
| Head-On Collisions | $532,034 |
| Intersection Collisions | $85,000 |
| Truck Accidents Overall | $90,000 |
I suspect that most truck crash attorneys would agree that both the likelihood of recovery and the amount of recovery is higher in Maryland, but I have seen no state-specific data on truck accident cases. If anyone knows of any data in Maryland or in any other state, please let me know.
This is a 14-year-old post, but it was updated on May 3, 2020, to give the current state of negligent security law in Maryland.
the Maryland Court of Special Appeals decided the case of Veytsman z. New York Palace, Inc. The issue in Veytsman was whether a nightclub had a duty to protect its patrons from being attacked by fellow patrons.
The court found that the nightclub had no such duty, affirming Baltimore City Circuit Judge Evelyn Omega Cannon’s ruling. The opinion underscores how difficult it is to hold nightclubs responsible for altercations that invariably occur in nightclubs, bars, and restaurants. But I also want to explain how to bring a negligent security case in Maryland.
We have seen an increasing number of recent client calls questioning the quality of the care that a family member or friend is receiving in a nursing home. Over 1.5 million Americans are in nursing homes with 30,000 of them in Maryland. That number is rising fast as America continues to age. Baltimore County alone has 49 nursing homes and 299 assisted-living facilities.
According to Jury Verdict Research, 60 percent of personal injury trials involving nursing home abuse or neglect result in plaintiff verdicts. The median verdict is $192,977. The median verdict alleging malpractice in the treatment of a nursing home patient is $275,000.
Last month, the Maryland Court of Appeals decided Food Lion v. McNeill. The issue in McNeill is whether the testimony of an expert may be excluded at trial based on a disclosure made during discovery in response to interrogatories, that has neither been claimed nor determined to be a discovery violation, but that is challenged at trial as deficient for failing to provide information as required by Maryland Rule 2-402(f)(1)(A).
2022 Update: This case ended up being more often cited than I thought.
Medical malpractice plaintiffs receive a median award of $934,487 for medical malpractice claims involving surgical negligence and improper medication, according to a recent Jury Verdict Research study that looked at malpractice cases nationally in the last seven years. Plaintiffs have a 36% chance of prevailing in these cases. The following statistics are the likelihood of a successful verdict:
Failed Sterilization 35%
Catheterization 39%
