February 2011 :: Maryland Accident Lawyer Blog

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Posted On: February 28, 2011

New Workers Comp Appellate Opinion

The Maryland Court of Special Appeals decided a worker's compensation case today involving former Redskins punter Tom Tupa. The case addresses the issue of where a comp claims arises for a player who played in Maryland at FedEx field but practiced in Virginia. Plaintiff was injured practicing before a game in Maryland but his contract had a forum selection clause that required all comp claims to be brought in Virginia.

The court found that parties cannot contract to avoid application of Maryland’s workers’
compensation law. It is hard to argue with this logic.

You can read the opinion here.

Posted by Laura G. Zois | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted In: Workers Compensation

Posted On: February 22, 2011

Mismatched Defense Medical Experts

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I do not know if it is a trend or whether I'm just noticing it more often. But I think our firm is seeing more cases than ever where the medical expert designated by the defendant is not the appropriate expert. Instead of matching the expert to the facts, they seem to just designate the usual suspects regardless of what the case is really about - trotting out shoulder guys in knee cases, orthopedic doctors in neurology cases, etc.

Here are two good questions to ask in these cases:

Do you believe your training and experience is equal to or greater than the treating doctors in this case? The obvious answer is, "'I have no idea," but so many of the DME docs just feel compelled to go all the way in to fight anything they perceive as progress for a plaintiff's lawyer. So if the doctor says "yes", then follow up with: Do you know the training and experience of the doctors who treated this patient? Almost invariably, the answer is going to be, "no."

Would you send someone you love to a doctor who has not seen a patient with your loved one's injury in 3 years?

Posted by Laura G. Zois | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted In: Car Accidents , Truck Accidents

Posted On: February 21, 2011

Head Injury Verdicts

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Head injuries are the most common cause of fatalities in car accidents. Jury Verdict research provides some interesting data on the median value of head injury cases, breaking down some of the different types of head injury claims:

Head Lacerations and Contusions: $10,016
Concussions: $22,638
Skull Fractures: $100,000
Cranial Nerve Damage: $160,095
Head and Skull Injuries, Overall: $14,034

Keep in mind these are median awards. The averages may be more than 10 times this amount and small "technically head injury but not really" cases drag down the median. Still, these numbers do seem very low.

Posted by Laura G. Zois | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted In: Personal Injury Awards

Posted On: February 15, 2011

Facebook Wrongful Death Lawsuit

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A plaintiffs' lawyer in Chicago has filed a ~~ridiculous~~ misguided wrongful death lawsuit blaming Facebook for a driver's failure to pay proper attention to the road, causing her to hit a 70 year-old pedestrian who was on the side of the road after being involved in a minor traffic accident.

On liability, the Plaintiffs have a good smoking gun. Assuming the facts in the lawsuit are true, the Defendant driver updated her Facebook page at 7:54 a.m., the same time that the decedent made a 9-1-1 call for help

This is great evidence against the Defendant driver. But, clearly, Facebook is no more to blame than a radio station playing bad music, causing a driver to divert their attention to turning the station.

Posted by Laura G. Zois | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted In: News Stories

Posted On: February 3, 2011