Maryland Accident Lawyer Blog

In car accident cases, there are typically relatively "good" settlements on ankle injury cases. For our purposes here, "good" is defined as the probability of getting a reasonable settlement offer before filing a lawsuit.

Why are ankle injury cases easier to settle than other accident claims? But the most obvious explanation is the nature ankle injuries. With neck and back injuries, which are common car accident injuries, people with the exact same radiological findings can have very different manifestations of pain. Given this, insurance companies tend to assume the lowest level of pain in these types of cases.

In contrast, ankle injuries are far less often the result of degenerative changes and are usually caused by trauma, rarely leading to concerns about preexisting injuries or arthritic changes. Just as importantly, they are typically objective injuries we can see on a radiology report. It also helps in reaching a value of an ankle injury for settlement purposes that the treatment of ankle injuries is generally not as involved as other car accident injuries which decreases the extent of the "you should not have gotten so much treatment" arguments from the insurance company.

Four years ago, the Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog reported on ankle verdicts and settlements in Maryland. You can find those here. A recent Jury Verdict Research study found that the average ankle injury verdict is $290,130 ($90,000 is the median). Maryland's median - again, four years ago - was right on par with the national average at $88,000.

I think this is useful data in determining an appropriate value for an ankle injury settlement. That said, all average verdict data is of questionable usefulness in a given case and ankle injury data is probably even less useful than most other types of car accident injuries. You can drive a truck though the difference in settlement value between a hairline ankle fracture and a crush injury. So, as always, take the ankle verdict data with a grain of salt.

You can now follow the Maryland Accident Lawyer Blog on Twitter. Many if not most of you would follow this blog to the end of the earth. The least you can do is follow us on Twitter!

Our hope is to make this a useful and intresting Twitter page for personal injury accident lawyer in Maryland to supplement the blog. Sometimes, I have thoughts that are just not enough for a blog post.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is now auditing car rental companies to make sure they are completing repairs on cars that have been recalled before renting or leasing them.

The car recall problem is twofold: car companies making defective cars and then the failure to solve the problem by fixing the car after the recall has been made. Consumers are the worst on this: they get a recall notice and toss it into the trash. When that happens, it is on you if your car becomes involved in a serious accident. The recall was out there. Get the car fixed.

The feds are looking at a more curable problem. Car rentals and leases where the recalls are never repaired. The government thinks that car companies have been aware of incidents involving personal injury or death caused by failure to conform to the applicable federal safety rules.

It will be interesting to see what comes of this investigation. My prediction from reading this article: lots of fines for everyone.

As we have written before, slip and fall cases in Maryland on snow and ice are going the way of the Betamax and the VHS. The Maryland Court of Appeals has so broadly set forth how it defines assumption of the risk in slip and fall snow and ice cases that Maryland lawyers are going to have a tough time getting these cases past summary judgment.

Why, then, are slip and fall lawyers in Maryland constantly telling us that we are wrong and they got a settlement in a snow and ice slip and fall? There is no question you can still get a settlement for a snow and ice slip and fall case in Maryland if the injuries are serious. But our law firm does not take cases because we think we might be able to get a settlement. When we get into a case, our lawyers are in for the long haul. We are not going to make a demand, threaten to file suit, and then drop the case. If our lawyers did this, we think we would lose credibility in all of our other accident cases with the insurance company.

I know there are clients out there reading this blog post looking for information about slip and fall settlements in Maryland on snow and ice. If you are looking for a lawyer who will work to get you a settlement in your case, I think you will eventually find one and that lawyer may very well be able to get you a settlement, particularly if the adjuster is not familiar with the latest Maryland law on slip and fall snow and ice claims. But our law firm will not be able to help you with your case.

• Sample Slip and Fall Complaint
(snow and ice complaint we filed years ago)
• Sample Motion to Defeat Summary Judgment in Snow and Ice Slip and Fall Case
• Recent Snow and Ice Slip and Fall Maryland Court of Appeals Opinion
(MSU v. Walker)
• $370,000 Jury Verdict in Anne Arundel County in Snow and Ice Slip and Fall
(Miller & Zois verdict)
• Assumption of the Risk Doctrine in Maryland
(explanation of Maryland's doctrine on assumption of the risk that we believe is unfair but is nevertheless Maryland law)

Metro Verdicts Monthly reports on a jury verdict in a five car rear end chain reaction car crash in Cecil County, Maryland. The case was not exactly an accident lawyer's delight. Cecil County is a tough jurisdiction for personal injury cases because, historically, jury verdicts have been relatively low. Adding to the concern, there was a soft tissue/exacerbation of a previous injury which means there is no real objective evidence that the Plaintiff was injured in the car accident.

The jury awarded $103,130 which is a pretty good verdict for a soft tissue/exacerbation of a prior disc injury case. It probably did not hurt that the Defendant Driver was driving a commercial vehicle which allowed the Plaintiff's lawyer to point to a concrete company instead of just the driver. Moreover, the Defendant Driver was also driving a Ford F-350 which helps further the argument that Plaintiff suffered injuries in the accident. (I wish MVM would include how much property damage was in the accident.)

Is this a good verdict? I think so. We don't have all of the facts. We do know that the verdict actually came back closer to the way the defendants' accident attorney viewed the case. The offer was $40,000; the demand was $300,000. Still, it sounds like a good verdict in a case that certainly had its share of weaknesses.

• Overview of Cecil County as a venue in accident suits
• What is the value of my case?
• Overview of Car Accident Cases
• $3 Million Verdict in Cecil County Overturned

Metro Verdicts Monthly this month provides a graph on its cover showing the median verdicts and settlements in motor vehicle accident death cases. In Maryland, the median is $457,152; Virginia's death case median is $487,500.

Why so low? While a death case in a truck accident case is probably three times this number, many auto and motorcycle accident claims have smaller insurance policies. We have handled death cases in car and motorcycle accidents where the victim's family walks away with $20,000 or $50,000 in a wrongful death/survival action case because the insurance is limited and the at-fault driver does not have significant assets. These settlements are included in the data which drags down the median number.

It bears repeating that sometimes the most significant battle for plaintiffs' attorneys in wrongful death car accident claims in Maryland is not at trial but before trial when they are digging through insurance policies trying to find coverage for the death.

• Wrongful death verdicts for minors
• Average wrongful death case values in Maryland (personal injury generally)
• Wrongful death when the victim is older than 65
• Maryland cap on noneconomic damages in wrongful death cases
• Older data on motor vehicle death claims in Maryland

The New Mexico Supreme Court came out with an interesting opinion in a very complicated case involving an Allstate lawyer's attempt to get a recovery against Allstate for the future money Allstate would have paid her as its attorney. Huh? It gets crazier than that, this is actually the fifth written opinion on this case. Incredibly, the lawyer got a $1.8 million recovery against Allstate from a jury. But, alas, the New Mexico high court says not so fast (fast being relative, these events started 13 years ago).

It is too much to summarize but you can find the opinion here.

One big issue for clients in car and truck accidents - particularly in cases where the injuries are extremely serious or fatal - is whether the at-fault driver is convicted of the traffic offense(s) for which the driver was cited. In wrongful death car accident cases, the clients are usually interested in one more thing: a manslaughter charge.

Accident victims and their families care about this for two fundamental reasons: (1) the desire for some measure of justice and, (2) because they believe it impacts their civil case. But, in most cases, a criminal conviction for conduct relating to a car or truck accident is inadmissible to establish liability in the civil lawsuit stemming from the wrong committed in the accident.

The logic of this escapes me. Maryland courts reason that there is a difference in the parties, objects, issues, procedure, and results in civil and criminal proceeds. But all of these things actually make it harder to get a conviction in a criminal case than a finding of primary negligence (setting aside contributory negligence) in a civil case. I think the real logic is quite practical: most of the time this situation arises in auto accident cases and our courts want defendants to be able to just pay a fine without an admission of guilt in a civil action.

Interestingly and importantly, Maryland seems to have an exception in wrongful death cases. In one 1997 Maryland Court of Appeals opinion (Eagan v. Calhoun), the court allowed the admission of the husband's guilty plea to manslaughter of his wife into evidence in the wrongful death case, as a judicial admission that the defendant had committed the killing and that the killing constituted voluntary manslaughter. The doctrine of judicial estoppel can also be a weapon in this context to the extent that a court might find that while the conviction is not an admission of liability, the defendant may not be permitted to offer evidence that contradicts the plea. In most liability dispute car accident cases, this makes liability almost a certainty.

Two take home messages for the Maryland accident lawyer: (1) a criminal conviction for the conduct now subject to a civil lawsuit may not be game/set/match for your liability case on primary or contributory negligence so don't assume liability is established and, (2) make sure you get a copy of the transcript of the criminal trial if the defendant testified.