Maryland Accident Lawyer Blog

The Maryland Gazette reports that given the lack of evidence of gross negligence – for which mere speeding does not meet - the State's Attorney for Prince George's County said he will not prosecute the Prince George's County police officer involved in a fatal car accident collision with a Bowie man in December 2007.

The victim’s family has a wrongful death lawsuit pending for this accident. Regardless of where you stand on the question of whether there should be criminal prosecution in these cases (you can read my thoughts on this here), any Maryland accident lawyer will tell you that this question is of little consequence to the family’s wrongful death lawsuit because there is little difference to the accident case whether the conviction is for vehicular manslaughter or for the ticket that this P.G. County police officer did receive in this case (assuming the ticket is involves something beyond speeding).

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Posted In: Car Accidents , News Stories

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The Baltimore Sun had an awful story yesterday about a man who fled the scene of one accident, was caught by police and then killed a mother and her eight year-old child just a 90 minutes later in Hartford County.

The Baltimore Sun quoted experts who questioned the decision not to arrest the suspect after the first hit and run. What I found very impressive was the parents/grandparents response to the concerns that the Hartford County police should have done more. The father/grandfather of the victims told the Baltimore Sun he didn't blame police for not arresting the suspect after the first accident. "Of course I'm upset, but I don't hold anything against our police officers." His wife added, ""His earlier accident in the day is not the accident that took our daughter and grandson's life. We have faith in law enforcement and if they're OK with letting him go back on the road, it's not the cause of the second accident."

Understandably at times, people often respond to a tragedy by blaming everyone in sight. I'm so impressed this family chose a different course.

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

Posted In: Car Accidents

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Most car accidents occur with injuries. Maryland accident lawyers typically do not get involved in such cases, leaving accident victims to deal with handling the property damage claim and getting a rental car themselves.

Convincing the insurance company to provide a rental car is a hassle in some Maryland accident case, even if you have a lawyer much less without. This article on getting a rental car from the insurance company after an accident provides a few thoughts for those of you who are traveling solo without a Maryland accident lawyer.

Remember that one good way to take this issue out of play in the further is to purchase rental reimbursement coverage. It costs very little - only $12 a year under most auto insurance policy but it is an investment worth making.

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

Posted In: Car Accidents , Truck Accidents , Uninsured Motorists

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It cannot be said enough that you will not get maximum value for each of your clients if they are discussed as a package deal, even if they are family members, friends or even spouses. Each time you have a discussion with an adjuster regarding a particular “accident”, you should be very careful to conclude discussion of one client before starting to talk about another. The adjuster will want to lump them together, pitting one against the other. She will say derogatory things about one claimant, and then state her feelings that the other one is even worse. (She also will have in the back of her mind a joint ‘figure’ she wants to offer for these claims.) Make sure you clearly end discussion of one client before starting to discuss another. “All right now, moving onto Client B.” Make sure you do not compare and contrast the injuries or lost wages of the two. Each client deserves your independent negotiation and attention. Pay careful attention if the adjuster has an inability to discuss the clients separately. Make note of this and, if necessary, make separate telephone calls for each client or even have separate lawyers in your firm make the calls on behalf of each client (but be sure to keep in touch with each other on the status of the negotiations). You may also want to settle one claim completely before tackling another.

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Posted In: Car Accidents

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The Baltimore Injury Lawyer Blog has a post today on navigating the waters when you have a bankrupt defendant.

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Posted In: Car Accidents

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Car accident lawyers fighting for injured victims have an uphill battle to climb in many respects. Public opinion has turned on victims in 2008 and judges and juries often assume when a car accident victim walks in the door that he/she is exaggerating their injuries.

So smart Maryland accident lawyers take the benefits that the system does provide for their clients. A big advantage plaintiffs’ lawyers have is that they are better able to dictate the pace of the progression of a case.

Some Maryland accident lawyers squander this great opportunity by failing to fully load the gun before firing it by filing a accident lawsuit. When filing a lawsuit, our accident lawyer serve the defendant with the Complaint, Interrogatories, Requests for Admission, Request for Production of Documents and Expert Designation. It is more work and requires you to be more proactive but helps you down the road - it is one more deadline you will need to meet down the road. In this regard, the road to legal malpractice is paved with lawyers who missed expert deadlines.

Still, make sure you put deadline to name experts on your discovery calendar and later check the designated experts to make sure you do not need additional experts for trial. Often, at the beginning of a case you will not believe you will require the testimony of an economist or a vocational rehabilitation expert, but you later find out that you do. Similarly, if your client is still suffering treating, you might need to name additional treating doctors.

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Posted In: Car Accidents

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It is generally not a good idea to handle a personal injury claim without a lawyer. But there are exceptions and, either way, many injury victims are going to proceed without a lawyer. If you find yourself in this situation, here are some thoughts on handling a personal injury case with the insurance company without a Maryland accident lawyer.

Related Article:

Handling Property Damage Claims Without a Lawyer

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

Posted In: Car Accidents , Truck Accidents , Uninsured Motorists

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The Maryland Personal Injury Lawyer Blog has a post about how accident lawyers should view the debacle at AIG in considering their client's AIG claims.

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Posted In: Car Accidents

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The Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog has a post about which insurance companies in Maryland are the most difficult to deal with in personal injury cases.

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Posted In: Car Accidents , Truck Accidents

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John Bratt recently discussed on the Baltimore Injury Lawyer Blog a trial that he had where the jury awarded all of the Plaintiff’s medical bills but awarded nothing for the client’s pain and suffering.

This was not the type of case we would appeal anyway because while our lawyers were not thrilled with the verdict, the client was extremely happy with the result being more than 8 times the offer.

But if our lawyers had appealed this verdict, I think we would have failed. In Patras v. Syphax, 166 Md. App. 67 (2005), the Maryland Court of Special Appeals heard an appeal in a rear end auto accident in Montgomery County on Georgia Avenue (which is familiar to many of us). The case involved Plaintiff’s request for a new trial because of a claimed inconsistency in the jury’s verdict. The jury found the Defendant negligent but refused to award any damages even though defendant’s expert admitted the Plaintiff was hurt in the accident.

The Maryland Court of Special Appeals affirmed the refusal of Montgomery County Judge Nelson W. Rupp, Jr., to grant a new trial because a reasonable jury could have found that the Plaintiff met his burden of proof on the negligence claim but did not on the injury claim. Specifically, the court held that based on jury instruction that Plaintiff was obliged to prove by a preponderance of evidence "each item of damage claimed to be caused by a defendant," the jury could have reasonably found that as a result of the car accident, the Plaintiff was injured but had failed to meet his burden of proof to demonstrate that money damages should be required to any particular item of damage.

Essentially, I think the court is saying that while the verdicts may be illogical, they are not necessarily inconsistent and the court is look for some basis - even if unlikely - to reconcile verdicts so they are not inconsistent.

I think the same logic would be applied to pain and suffering damages in the claim John wrote about in his Baltimore Injury Lawyer Blog post.

Interestingly, the Maryland Court of Appeals granted certiorari and then later determined the petition had been “improvidently granted.” I have no idea what happened there.

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Posted In: Car Accidents

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The Baltimore Accident Lawyer Blog has a great blog post on a recent trial that John Bratt had against State Farm.

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Posted In: Car Accidents

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The Baltimore Sun has an interesting story on balancing compassion and victim's rights in fatal car accidents in Maryland.

These are tough issues. What should be the criminal penalties for those who negligently (distinguished from drunk for our purposes here) kill others in fatal car accidents? Should criminal courts admit "I'm sorry" evidence from the driver accused of killing another in a motor vehicle.

My law partner blogged recently about a case in Missouri where it is pretty easy to infer that a lawsuit should not have been brought against the at-fault party in a wrongful death case. Before you disagree, read the facts here and let me know what you think.

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Posted In: Car Accidents , Truck Accidents

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Accident lawyers need to avoid the temptation to talk to insurance adjusters in "___ times specials" terms. This telegraphs with a bullhorn to the insurance adjuster that you are looking at your client as simply a number, not a person. Accident lawyers that talk in "times specials" math are not the same lawyers that read and evaluate the medical records.

Often, a multiplier of the damages is a fair settlement value only by mere coincidence. Further, your are sending a loud message to the adjuster that you are a will forever mark you down as being the attorney who is not working up his/her cases individually. This can also make you appear lazy and uninformed, which is obviously never a good thing in any negotiation context.

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

Posted In: Car Accidents

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Maryland was one of 32 states that decreased their number of drunk driving fatalities, according to a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report issued yesterday. Drunk driving deaths in Maryland declined by 10, a 5.3% decrease. The national average was a 3.7% decease.

This is good news The bad news is that almost 13,000 people were killed in car, truck and motorcycle accidents where the driver was shown to have a BAC of .08 or higher. If we took the money we are spending in Maryland now on the Bay Bridge bridge and put that money into more drunk driving checkpoints, we only save about 20 times the number of lives.

More troubling news was that the number of motorcycle drivers killed in alcohol related motor vehicle accidents increase 7.5 percent. The government has been doing good thing pushing the motorcycle accident issue head on, featuring motorcycle accidents in their $13 million advertising campaign to attack the drug driving accident problem that comes on Labor Day weekend.

A number of states did not follow the national trend. Drunk driving deaths increased in Washington, D.C. and Virginia as well as Alabama, Alaska, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, West Virginia, and Wisconsin..

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Posted In: Car Accidents

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Hit and run and phantom vehicle cases can be a challenge for Maryland accident lawyers. But good lawyers can obtain compensation for their clients in the vast majority of cases.

In Maryland, if you are injured in an accident as the result of the negligence of a hit-and-run driver, you can still recover for your medical bills, lost income from work, and pain and suffering damages as if the driver had been identified by bringing an uninsured motorist claim or lawsuit pursuant to your own car insurance policy. Maryland law treats an unknown negligent driver as it would an known uninsured driver for purposed on the injury victim's uninsured motorist policy.

With respect to phantom vehicles - those vehicles that cause an accident but then drive away before then can be identified - some states require physical contact with the phantom vehicle for the injury victim to be able to make an uninsured motorist claim. Maryland law, however, does not require physical contact. If the insurance company has policy language to the contrary, Maryland courts will ignore the language.

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

Posted In: Car Accidents

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