Many people researching information on their accident claims in Maryland ask what COMAR is. COMAR is the Code of Maryland Regulations. COMAR regulations are Maryland state agency regulations. You can find all of the Maryland COMAR regulations here.
Premises liability lawsuits in Maryland can be difficult claims. As a result, many premises liability, or slip and fall, lawyers are hesitant to take on new personal injury claims unless the liability is clear. The hesitation to avoid these cases is strong but our lawyers have obtained substantial verdicts in premises liability and slip and fall cases.
For an overview of Maryland slip and fall law, click here.
The magazine Money last month reported that $1.2 million is the average verdict in personal injury suits.
I think the average personal injury verdict is less than $1 million. Even so, this is an incredibly misleading number because this includes very large verdicts, many of which are not collectible because of financial limitation of the defendant or because of caps on damages.
Still, the advice offered in the article is good advice:
Adding umbrella insurance to your homeowners and auto policies coverage that shields you from out-size medical and property-damage bills and legal judgments that result from accidents on your property or in your car provides some protection. And it's relatively cheap: $150 to $300 a year for a $1 million policy, plus around $75 for each extra $1 million of coverage. (We're stepping up to $4 million to be safe).
The cost of umbrella insurance is cheap in proportion to the peace of mind it affords its insured. Probably the only issue on which insurance companies and our accident lawyers agree.
The Baltimore Sun reports on a fatal motorcycle accident involving a Baltimore County police officer, the second fatal accident involving a motorcycle and a Baltimore County police officer in less than a month.
It is an incredible and tragic coincidence. The article reads as though this accident was the result of the negligence of someone else. I just wonder if people are going to be driving motorcycles twenty years from now. Because regardless of who is at fault, motorcycles are just not well equipped for accidents with cars on relatively immovable objects.
Maryland women who have filed YAZ/Yasmin lawsuits in federal courts are seeing their cases shipped to Illinois, and many are wondering why. The Judicial Panel on MultiDistrict Litigation (JPML) approved MDL-2100, In Re: Yasmin and YAZ (Drospirenone) Marketing, Sales Practices and Products Liability Litigation. The approval was made on October 1, only seven days after the September 24 hearing.
The effect of the order is to transfer all YAZ and Yasmin drug defect cases that are now or later filed in federal courts to the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois. The judge in charge of coordinated and/or consolidated proceedings there will be Chief Judge David R. Herndon (a Clinton appointee who, while in private practice, primarily represented plaintiffs in FELA railroad cases).
This is a terrific and exciting move for the YAZ and Yasmin litigation. The MDL will enable attorneys to spend more time working on the common discovery in all of their cases, and less time on case management orders and case-specific motions practice. Consolidation will truly promote judicial efficiency, and will probably lead to a better result for all concerned.
There are other hotbeds of YAZ/Yasmin activity. Some Maryland YAZ/Yasmin patients may have cases filed in state court in Philadelphia, California, or New Jersey. Philadelphia has a mock-centralization established. Whichever location for the case, we are confident that Maryland women and their families who have been injured by YAZ and Yasmin (injuries include gall bladder disease and removal, pulmonary embolism, deep vein thrombosis, strokes and heart attacks) will get their day in court.
f you or someone you care for has used Yasmin/Yaz and has suffered from blood clots, stroke, DVT, heart attack or gallbladder injury, or you are an attorney with a Yasmin/Yaz case for which you would co-counsel or you think might be a candidate for a lawsuit or future potential global settlement, please call one of our MarylandYasmin/Yaz attorneys at 800-553-8082 or click here for a free no obligation consultation on your potential Yasmin/Yaz lawsuit.
If this blog is named Maryland Accident Lawyer, why are our lawyers talking about car accident cases in Atlanta? We are based in Maryland, not Atlanta. Our car accident cases are always going to be predominantly from Maryland. But we do have a lawyer who is a member of the bar in Georgia and we are looking to expand our practice to be competitive nationally.
To be honest, our lawyers are not looking for soft tissue injury car accident cases in Atlanta. If you call with one of those, we are most likely going to refer you to a local Atlanta car accident lawyer who is qualified to handle your claim. We are looking to get involved with clients who have extremely serious injuries from a car accident in the Atlanta area. Actually, we are looking at the entire state of Georgia, but certainly the bulk of the serious injury cases are going to come from the greater Atlanta area, which also has jury pools more conducive to large jury verdicts.
Towards this end in Atlanta, we have started an Atlanta Car Accident Lawyer page on our website summarizing car accident law in Georgia. I think it is informative and I think it is the most comprehensive summary of law as it relates not only to auto accident cases in Atlanta but to malpractice and products liability claims in Georgia – cases that we will also be putting on our radar screen.
If you need an Atlanta car accident lawyer, call 800-553-8082 or click here for a free consultation.
I hate to be a shrill for the insurance companies. Maryland accident lawyers and insurance companies rarely hold hands on an issue related to car accidents and insurance. But there is one thing we both agree on when it comes to uninsured motorist limits: they should be high. How much? That depends on how comfortable you are but I just don't think it makes sense to have less than $1 million in uninsured motorist coverage.
No one has been able to give a good answer as to how many people are uninsured in Maryland and I think Maryland is doing a better job of keeping uninsured motorists off the road (the FR-19 system). But our accident lawyers know one thing for sure: people who are uninsured disproportionately cause more accidents than people who have valid car insurance. Why is this? I speculate that people who will take risks by having no car insurance also are willing to take risks on the roads.
This argument takes particular force in cases if you have a preexisting condition such that you are more susceptible to an injury from the trauma of a car accident.
Click here for more information on uninsured motorist lawsuits in Maryland.
I've been looking though the legislative history of Maryland's bad faith statute and found this interesting testimonial that was contained in a letter from Steven L. Kanstoroom to the Maryland House Judiciary Committee:
A recent Jury Verdict Research report confirms what you would to find about personal injury verdicts for paralysis: younger plaintiff get higher verdicts and settlements. Plaintiffs 17 years-old and under receive a median verdict in personal injury cases of $15,500,000. Plaintiffs 50 years-old and older receive $3,358,428. The average paralysis verdict is $13,854,992; the median paralysis verdict is $6,935,774. Approximately 65% of paralysis patients come from motor vehicle accident, medical malpractice or product liability cases.
The average quadriplegia verdict is over $20 million. It is crazy to say $20 million sounds low. But it does.
Pure no fault auto insurance has been touted as a back door around litigation costs that insurance automobile insurance rates. The problem with no fault car insurance is that - ironically given the business interests that support it - is that it is pure socialism. Good drivers are required to pay for bad drivers and no one is required to take responsibility for causing harm to another person.
But the biggest problem is that people who suffer catastrophic injuries as the result of car accident are all treated the same, whether they reckless caused their own injuries or they were harmed through no fault of their own. How do we reconcile this with the American way?
In Maryland, providing limited no fault insurance while (largely) allowing the historical tort system to work has been an effective system.
Most of our country's fatal car, truck and motorcycle accidents occur on rural roads, according to statistics released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Fifty-six percent of 37,261 traffic deaths occurred on rural roads during 2008. Researchers say that the higher death rate on rural roads stems from a combination of faster driving speeds, poorer road engineering, behavioral influences and slower delivery of acute medical care.
I would think you would have to add more single lane, curvy roads where vehicles are traveling at excessive speeds.
When a car accident lawyer hears from a client that "the accident caused my bulging disc," it is unlikely that is medically accurate. But that does not mean that there cannot be a meaningful settlement or verdict at trial. Let me explain.
Many of us have bulging discs. Unlike a herniated disc, most bulging discs are not as the result of trauma. But, clearly, trauma can exacerbate a bulging disc that is otherwise dormant and has not caused any symptoms. Under Maryland accident law, the defendant is obligated to pay for the net harm caused by the accident.
This Maryland law that protects the vulnerable is reflected in Maryland pattern jury instruction 10:3:
Susceptibility to Injury
The effect that an injury might have upon a particular person depends upon the susceptibility to injury of the plaintiff. In other words, the fact that the injury would have been less serious if inflicted upon another person should not affect the amount of damages to which the plaintiff may be entitled.
So just because the accident victim had a pre-existing injury - in this case a bulging disc - it does not mean that the victim cannot recover even if the same accident might have caused less or no harm to someone without that preexisting injury.
Our accident lawyers have used this metaphor for preexisting injuries at trial. Let's say a farmer gets rear ended by a truck while carting a full load of eggs, causing the eggs to be broken. The truck driver who rear-ended the farmer cannot come into court and say that he had no obligation to pay for the broken eggs because if golf balls had been in the crates instead of eggs, there would not have been any harm. Similarly, a defendant cannot argue that an accident victim would not be hurt if he/she did not have a bulging disc.
If you have a bulging disc claim and need an accident lawyer, call 800-553-8082 or click here for a free initial consultation.
My client breaks his wrist in an accident. At-fault driver flees the scene. The police report makes all of this clear. So we bring an uninsured motorist claim.
This is the email I get from one of my paralegals:
John from State Farm called re: [client].... Driver Elrod had said there was "no contact." State Farm will send denial letter.
Of course, there was contact and property damage to go with it (not that contact is required, anyway, under Maryland uninsured motorist law if the negligence causes an accident). In fact, most of the property damage to the vehicle was from the collision with the at-fault driver.
Thankfully, there are pictures of all of this. But it is incredible to me that State Farm, in an uninsured motorist case, is willing to rely upon the word of a guy who flees the scene of a car accident.
You can see a depiction of the accident scene here. For information for lawyers handling claims against State Farm in Maryland, click here.
Forklift truck accidents frequently cause catastrophic, life-altering injuries. But the risk is not just to forklift truck drivers. As many as two-thirds of forklift accidents - at least in some areas - involve pedestrians or otherwise innocent bystanders. Many forklift claims involve: caught limbs, running over pedestrians' feet, and entering or exiting the vehicle improperly.
Here are some disconcerting forklift accident statistics:
Continue reading " Maryland Forklift Truck Accidents " »
