Maryland Injury Law Center

April 20, 2007

Study Highlights General Motors’ Vehicle Death Rates

The Insurance Journal reported today on an Insurance Institute for Highway Safety study that found that General Motors’ vehicles had both the highest and lowest death rates in the period between 2002 and 2005. Chevrolet Blazers built from 2001 to 2004 had 232 driver deaths per million registered vehicles during the four-year span, the highest of any vehicle. The Acura RSX had the second-highest rate with 202 driver deaths followed by the Nissan 350Z, which registered 193 deaths. The rate represents the reported number of driver deaths divided by the model’s number of registered years.

In contrast, the Chevrolet Astro minivan had the lowest rate with only seven deaths per million registered vehicles. It was followed by the Infiniti G35, BMW 7 Series and the Toyota 4Runner. Ironically, Chevy no longer makes the Blazer or the Astro.

My guess is that the Chevy Astro is not 33 times safer than a Chevy Blazer. The demographics in terms of risk-taking behaviors are different for the purchaser of a minivan than a sporty SUV because the study did not consider driver behavior or how the vehicles are used. Still, there are still meaningful conclusions that can be drawn from this study about which vehicles are the safest and least safe to drive. The profile on the driver of a Chevy Blazers cannot be that different from the drivers of Toyota 4-Runners.

April 16, 2007

Medical Malpractice Lawsuit Filed Against Carolina Panthers’ Team Doctor

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

Former Carolina Panthers wide receiver Patrick Jeffers re-filed his medical malpractice and negligence lawsuit last week against the Carolina Panthers’ former team doctor. Jeffers had originally brought a medical malpractice claim in 2003, but his lawyers voluntarily dismissed the claim last year. The new medical malpractice lawsuit is virtually identical to the prior claim. Mr. Jeffers’ medical malpractice attorneys allege that Jeffers’ NFL career was “destroyed” because of the team doctor adding five unauthorized knee procedures to an Aug. 20, 2000 surgery.

The original suit included the Panthers, but a judge ruled that Jeffers’ complaints against the team first needed to go through the NFL’s grievance process because of provisions in the league’s collective bargaining agreement.

I brought a medical malpractice lawsuit against the New England Patriots, their team doctor, and a surgeon who operated on my client about six years ago. The Patriots raised this same defense but did not raise it until we had gone through two years of litigation. The judge ruled that the Patriots had waived their arbitration right by not raising the issue. The Patriots settled the case shortly after this ruling.

April 5, 2007

First Party Bad Faith Passes the Maryland Legislature

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

The Maryland Senate has passed House Bill 425 and the Maryland House of Delegates today also passed the bill, which puts a new requirement of good faith for insurance companies dealing with their insureds. The bill now heads to Governor O’Malley for his signature. The Governor has previously pledged support for the bill.

This issue has been a reoccurring topic on the Maryland Personal Injury Lawyer Blog. See this post and this post. My partner, Laura G. Zois, testified before the Maryland Senate and House of Delegates about three weeks ago on this very issue. I know that after the bill passed the Maryland Senate, there were a lot of lobbying efforts from the insurance companies to keep it from passing in the House of Delegates. They pushed the vote back, and I began to doubt whether Maryland would join most states that already have first-party bad faith. I’m thrilled the Maryland Assembly put the interest of Maryland injury victims and consumers ahead of the insurance company and their lobbyists.

This is a huge win for victims and their attorneys who are fighting to get injury victims a fair recovery for their injuries and the benefits of the insurance contract for which they are paying premiums.

March 30, 2007

Causes of Maryland Truck Accidents

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

According to The Federal Motor Carry Safety Administration’s 2006 report, there are approximately 141,000 truck crashes every year. In 77,000 of these truck accidents – more than half – the fault was attributed to the truck driver. This is interesting because we have been getting data from the American Trucking Associations. and the Truckload Carriers Association for years telling us that the truck drivers are rarely at fault in truck accidents. Yet this ostensibly objective study says just the opposite.

According to the FMCA 2006 report, the top 10 causes of truck accidents where the truck driver is a fault:

1. Prescription drug use (26%)

March 21, 2007

Slip and Fall Cases on Snow and Ice: Will You Win?

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

I stumbled on a Metro Verdicts Monthly from last year that examined the success plaintiffs have at trial in slip and fall cases on snow and ice. In Maryland, defendants prevailed 62% of the time.

The difficulty in these cases often lies not with whether the defendant was negligent, but whether the plaintiff assumed the risk because he/she appreciated the danger of walking on the snow/ice. Under Maryland law, this is the assumption of the risk, unless the plaintiff lacked the free will to avoid the danger. This is presumably the case when going to work, entering or leaving your home, and tending to other necessities of life. That no reasonable alternative path was available does not reduce the free will standard.

Morgan State v. Walker

March 19, 2007

Maryland Drivers Who Get Speeding Tickets Continue to Speed According to University of Maryland Study

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

Ever wonder why your insurance rates go up when you get a speeding ticket? A study of 3.7 million licensed Maryland drivers shows that ticketing does not reduce drivers’ likelihood of getting another ticket for speeding.

Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine looked at Maryland’s licensed drivers and found that getting a speeding ticket almost doubles the risk of receiving a subsequent speeding citation.

The study also turned up interesting data comparing those who go to court for speeding tickets and those that do not. As every Maryland driver knows, if you get a speeding ticket and you were not doing a complete Dale Earnhardt impression, you can either go to court (where you will invariably be found guilty so your best bet is to plead guilty) or you can pay the fine by mail. The University of Maryland study found that the likelihood of receiving another speeding ticket was 12 percent among drivers who had opted to pay fines and received points on their driving records compared to eight percent among those who received probation before judgment (PBJ). This makes sense. The driver who cared enough to go to court is probably more likely to slow down.

March 16, 2007

Videotaping a Defense Medical Exam: Should Personal Injury Lawyers Explore This Option?

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

When I received an advertisement for a book on Deposing Difficult Doctors by Florida personal injury lawyer, Kim Hart, the title caught my attention. The advertisement included excerpts from the book. What caught my interest is videotaping “independent” medical exams (IMEs). The book makes two arguments in favor of videotaping IMEs:

1. “If you make it a practice to videotape all compulsory medical examinations, you soon will have videotapes of most of the doctors used by the insurance companies in your area. Give your client a copy of a previous videotaped compulsory medical examination and the transcript from the examination of the doctor who is scheduled to examine her. This will take all the mystery and surprise out of the situation and help calm your client’s fear of the unknown.”

2. “A defense-oriented CME [I assume this stands for compulsory medical exam] doctor often plays Mr. Nice Guy at the examination. He will make sympathetic statements to your client such as, “I can see you have suffered a lot” or “I can tell that this injury has had a serious effect on your life.” If a physician is two-faced and projects Mr. Nice Guy at the compulsory medical examination but Attila the Hun at trial, showing the jury a tape of the examination can communicate to them instantly what a scheme he is.”

March 13, 2007

Peter Angelos Opposes Comparative Negligence

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

The Maryland Gazette reports today that Peter G. Angelos is lobbying the General Assembly’s judicial committees to kill a bill that would allow Maryland to join 46 other states in switching from a standard of contributory negligence to one of comparative fault.

Angelos’ fear, which all Maryland plaintiffs’ lawyers fully share, is that with comparative negligence we might lose joint and several liability, which allows plaintiffs to seek full recovery from culpable parties who are not 50% responsible. All defendants who are substantially contributing causes of a plaintiff’s injury are individually fully responsible for the total amount of a jury award to a successful plaintiff. A separate court action later decides how much each defendant pays.

More to the point for Mr. Angelos, his firm handles asbestos cases where some responsible parties are bankrupt. Mr. Angelos’ concern is his potential failure to gain a full recovery in these asbestos cases.

March 7, 2007

Most Outrageous Lawsuits: The Attack on Personal Injury Lawyers Continues Unabated

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

America Online (AOL) is running an article titled “Most Outrageous Lawsuits.” It appears in the money and finance section of AOL and was also prominently displayed on the AOL home page. As a frequent user of AOL (I really love their product) for the last 11 years, I keep seeing this article over and over.

The “crazy lawsuits” AOL describes come directly from groups like Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse (CALA) and the American Tort Reform Association (ATRA), groups who see personal injury lawyers as the great Satan whose sole mission is to destroy corporate America while lining our pockets with millions of dollars.

These groups rely on a false premise: that the American public cannot be trusted and American juries give out ridiculous awards that unsubstantiated by the evidence or even common sense. The groups that vilify personal injury lawyers are entitled to their opinion and they are not wrong that frivolous lawsuits sometimes get filed. What it does not entitle them to is their own facts. But they often make up their own facts, manufacturing insane lawsuits and verdicts that never happened.

February 23, 2007

Don’t Object Just Because You Can: Dr. Robert O. Gordon’s Deposition

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

My partner, Laura Zois, conducted a videotape trial cross-examination of frequent flyer defense medical expert, Dr. Robert O. Gordon, a doctor who makes a lot of money working for insurance companies and, frequently, for State Farm. During his examination, he spewed out many inappropriate and factually incorrect statements. Here is an example:

Q. And why not, Doctor? Would you explain the reasons for your opinion?

A. Well, first of all, there was nothing in the emergency room report, or in the report of the doctors that he was sent to by his attorney, that indicated that —