Maryland Accident Lawyer Blog

Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley signed into law on Senate Bill 277, a controversial law that I suspect will decrease the number of fatal accidents in Maryland. This new Maryland law provides for the use of speed cameras in highway work zones and within a half-mile radius of schools, which means that they can be placed on freeways in work zones or close to schools.
Maryland and Arizona are the only states with laws on the books that provide for the use of freeway speed cameras.

In is apodictic that a disporportate number of fatal Maryland car accident involve pedestrians. What kind of pedestrians? With incredibly frequency, our accident lawyers see two kinds of fatal pedestrian accident cases: kids and workers in a work zone. This law addresses both of these problems.

This issue is on my brain because I'm meeting with the parents of a child who died last week in a pedestrian accident in the next 20 minutes. I realize that people have a legitimate fear of Big Brother and I do appreciate that fear. But if it saves the lives of kids, is it really too invasive to make use technology to make sure people follow the law on a public road?

Maryland's law takes effect on October 1.

Many of our Maryland accident lawyers’ clients were injured in a car accident while on the job. This means the plaintiff has three accident claims under Maryland law: PIP, third party liability, and workers’ compensation.

Generally, a Maryland accident lawyer wants to present the PIP claim before the workers’ compensation claim in Maryland. Other states differ on the right of subrogation of PIP insurance. But Maryland law is clear that the PIP carrier has no right of subrogation against any third-party recovery, according to Maryland Code, Insurance Article §19-507(d). In other words, if the PIP claim is made first, the injury victim does not have to pay back the PIP benefits the victim receives (most attorneys don’t charge for PIP claims). In contrast, the workers' compensation carrier has subrogation rights (after attorneys’ fees) out of the third-party recovery for the workers' compensation benefits that it paid to the victim under Maryland Code, Labor and Employment Article §9-902(e) and §9-902 (f).

If a Maryland accident lawyer decides – either out of laziness or just getting it wrong – to put the workers’ compensation claim first, the lawyer might be barred from making a PIP claim. Under Maryland accident law, the PIP carrier receives a setoff for workers' compensation benefits that the accident victim has received under Maryland Code Insurance Article §19-513(e).

The Insurance Research Council found that rising gas prices in the last few years have increased the number of serious auto accident injuries. The reason is that when drivers switch to smaller vehicles as a result of higher prices at the pump, more accident injuries ensue.

The institute took 9,000 accident claims from 2007, broke them down according to vehicle weight, and found that people driving compacts, sports cars and other smaller cars submitted injury claims that were 14 percent larger, on average, than those of people driving SUVs and other larger vehicles. A hidden cost of small car accidents, according to the study: more people lose work time because of injury than in large-vehicle accidents.

The large vehicle gas guzzler versus small vehicle great gas mileage choice is a false choice in terms of technology: carmakers can build large cars that get good gas mileage. The problem with large cars that get good gas mileage is that they accelerate much more slowly than consumers are willing to tolerate.

In MAIF v. Baxter, the Maryland Court of Special Appeals ruled that Maryland law does not require a car insurer to provide uninsured motorist coverage to an uninsured stranger/pedestrian who is struck by a car driven by a person excluded under the insurer’s policy. Basically, the court found that the Maryland Legislature only required that UM coverage be extended to an “insured.”

For once, MAIF was – albeit accidentally – fighting for the good guys, because the pedestrian’s estate asserted a claim against the Uninsured Division of MAIF. The Plaintiff’s estate was relatively indifferent because the UM limit was $20,000 in either event. So, incredibly, we have MAIF fighting unsuccessfully to create good case law for Maryland accident lawyers.

I have not read the nuances of this case closely enough to find great flaw in the court’s interpretation of Maryland uninsured motorist law (and it does not sound as if reading MAIF’s briefs would be of much help in this regard). But this is just bad law. The woman is an innocent pedestrian walking down the street. There is insurance coverage on the car. That should be enough. (But I understand reasonable people can disagree with this premise.)

One funny thing about the case - and this sounds just like MAIF – is that MAIF asserted for the first time in its reply brief that the insurance policy issued by the insurance company that covered the car (Interstate) should have provided coverage.

What is the average car accident settlement in Maryland? I don't think anyone knows. But the Maryland Auto Accident Lawyer website has a page with information and resources to try to figure out - within a range of course - the average expected value of your car accident settlement or verdict in Maryland.
This resource provides information that should be helpful to Maryland accident lawyers trying to evaluate car accident cases.

One historic hassle for lawyers serving defendant in Maryland auto accident cases is when the Defendant lives out-of-state. But for auto accidents in Maryland that occurred after October 1, 2008, car accident lawyers can serve the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration (MVA) to effectuate service.

You can read about the nuances of exactly how to effectuate service in a Maryland car accident case here.

WBAL has a very informational yet unintentionally funny piece on its website about the relationship between car insurance rates and your credit history.

BALTIMORE -- The WBAL TV 11 News I-Team has discovered that your credit can play a huge role in what you pay for auto insurance and there's little you can do about it.

It's been long known that where you live, your marital status and age can impact what you pay for auto insurance, I-Team reporter Deborah Weiner said. But an insurance agent from a well-known company who asked to remain anonymous risked her job to share her outrage with 11 News about credit scores impacting insurance rates.

The agent said she wants consumers to know that even during the recession, most automobile insurers use credit information to rate driver policies, meaning personal problems such as bankruptcies and late payments may result in higher premiums for drivers.

"If you follow the rules and you're a safe driver and you don't have any accidents, there should be no reason -- any other reason -- that your premium should be higher," the agent said.

The full article is available here. It is a well-written and informative article. It is amazing how very people in Maryland understand that their credit score can matter as much as the all important "points on your license" in determining auto insurance rates. The reason: people who are casual with their credit are like to take higher risks in their cars which makes them more likely to get into a car accident - and a more serious car accident - than those with good credit. This is not a theory. It is a statistical fact.

Continue reading "Credit Scores and Car Insurance in Maryland" »

I'm always reading about how State Farm and Allstate dominate auto insurance nationally. Our accident lawyers seem to see more of GEICO than any other insurance companies. An article with auto insurance market share data that I found this morning lists the top 5 car insurance companies by market share in Maryland for private passenger cars:

GEICO: 19.6%
State Farm: 19.2%
Allstate Insurance: 14.2%
Nationwide Insurance: 10.1%
Erie Insurance: 6.1%

I've never done a study of the auto accident cases we have in our law office, but this data does not surprise me. Our Maryland accident lawyers certainly see Erie Insurance more than 6.1% of the time, but certainly Erie writes more commercial policies than these other insurance companies.

Speaking of Erie, it is interesting that Erie is the only insurance company on this list that does not have in-house counsel in Maryland. Their defense lawyers – Erie seems to use Rollins Smalkin, mostly in Baltimore, and McCarthy Wilson throughout much of the rest of Maryland - are good lawyers, but I have to think paying their hourly rates makes defending Maryland auto accident case more expensive for Erie than it is for the four insurance companies ahead of them on this list.

I don’t know. I really don’t know. That answer is followed by a laundry list of lawyerly explanations: no two cases are the same, each are judged on their merits, blah blah blah. This incredibly trite response is also true. Any accident lawyer who thinks they can accurately evaluate your case without reviewing all of your medical records and bills and understanding the severity of the accident and the injuries is completely kidding themselves – or you.

That said, there is a few things you can look at to better understand the value of your Maryland accident claim. First, there is an understanding of how insurance companies value cases. Second, there is data available on how juries decide similar cases.

Again, going back to the cliché, each case is absolutely different. But if you don’t know whether your case is worth $5,000,000 or $5,000 there are two resources for you. The first is our article on How Insurance Companies Value Personal Injury Cases, which includes a list of injuries and verdict amounts for those types of injures. The second is on the Maryland Auto Accident Lawyer website which breaks down the nuance of how Maryland auto accident cases are valued. In other words, it discusses how much money you might get for your accident claim.

Going back to the title of this article, the question is: how much money will you get for your injuries from the accident and, for some victims, how fast will you get it? That really is the issue in any personal injury case. Our job as Maryland accident lawyers is unambiguous: to get you as much money as possible for your injuries. One question that is critical to the analysis of how much you will recovery is not included in the statistics on accident verdicts: how hard your personal injury lawyer is willing to fight to get you the most money possible.