We received a letter from the Baltimore City police department indicating that they are now EMAILING police reports. Baltimore accident lawyers must still send a written letter and a check requesting the report but in the letter you may request the report to be emailed back instead of mailed.
This is one huge step forward in bringing the logics of collecting records in Baltimore accident cases in 2010.
We received a letter from the Baltimore City police department indicating that they are now EMAILING police reports. Baltimore accident lawyers must still send a written letter and a check requesting the report but in the letter you may request the report to be emailed back instead of mailed.
This is one huge step forward in bringing the logics of collecting records in Baltimore accident cases in 2010.
What can a client say to make a Maryland accident lawyer's shoulders' droop? Lots of things, of course. One of those things is certainly "I have a Medicare."
A Medicare lien which is more than a lien, actually. It is a superlien. That word sounds made up but that is exactly what a Medicare lien is. More than just a right of subrogation, the superlien allows Medicare to seek reimbursement directly from the provider. (Medicare rarely choses that route.)
A superlien is also paramount in another way that is important to accident lawyers: Medicare can get the money if it is stiffed from the accident lawyer personally. So lawyers who ignore Medicare liens literally do so at their own peril. Moreover, there is a clear obligation to notify Medicare if they don't know of the potential recovery from a third party.
Will Medicare reduce medical liens? In many case, Medicare will. Accident lawyers often argue that the medical bills and treatment are not causally related to the accident. (Which furthers the trial lawyer "talking outside of both sides of her mouth" theory because, most, likely, the lawyer argued the very opposite in the case to the insurance company.) You can also get reductions for attorneys' fees and pro rata expenses incurred.
Medicare can be reasonable with reducing liens but, unlike other lien holders, they require often require settlement on the case before they are willing to discuss reducing the lien which adds more time to the resolution of the case.
One new innovation in dealing with Medicare liens is that you can get a lot of information about your client's Medicare lien online. You have to register for each individual case but you can find out the amount and status of the lien.
There is a popular conception that lawsuits in car accident cases are filed directly against the insurance companies. It is easy to understand the source of the confusion. The insurance company that insured the driver or the vehicle is going to stand behind their insured and pay any claim up to the policy limit of the policy. The insurance company is also going to make the decision as to how much to offer as a settlement, not the actual defendant, who is usually kept in the dark on the entire process from initial settlement offer though the tactics the insurance company will take at trial.
Technically, in Maryland car accident lawsuits are generally filed against the defendant themselves. This technical distinction makes a difference at trial because the jury is not told there is insurance behind the case under Maryland’s collateral source rule. I remember trying a case against a defendant once where we got a good verdict ($298,000 award after a $25,000 offer before trial). When we met with the jurors after the trial, their big concern was whether there was insurance because they were concerned that the defendant – who was a pretty good guy – would have to pay the verdict themselves.
The exception to this is underinsured/uninsured motorist cases. In Maryland, claims are brought directly against the insurance company. To serve an insurance company defendant with a lawsuit in Maryland, you can serve the Maryland Insurance Administration. It looks like this:
The Baltimore Sun reports today 25% of teenagers told researchers that they text while driving a car, and almost half say they've been in cars with someone who sent text messages while driving an automobile.
Cell phones cause enough accidents even without adding in the texting while driving.
Texting while driving is against the law in Maryland as of October 1st. But I wonder if a single texting while driving charge has been brought against a single driver. How can you prove texting versus making a phone call or even looking on the Internet which, ostensibly, is not a violation of the statute.
What is the answer? I really don't have any idea. But someone need to think of something.
Premise 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.
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:
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.
Maryland accident lawyers do not complain much about not having punitive damages for accident lawsuits in Maryland. Why? I think it is just because we are so used to it, no one really imagines a punitive damages world. Yesterday, the Maryland Malpractice Lawyer Blog underscored the power of punitive damages in reporting on a South Carolina medical malpractice claim.
Today, LawyersUSA reports on a drowning accident verdict in Montgomery, Alabama. The jury found $766,000 in compensatory damages for the drowning death of a 19-year-old football player against an Alabama hotel. But the jury also awarded $3 million in punitive damages. The jury clearly wanted to send the hotel a message for what it obviously considered extreme negligence. It is unfortunate that Maryland juries are not afforded the same opportunity to send a message in accident cases in Maryland.
According to Metro Verdicts Monthly, the median settlement or verdict in a Maryland dog bit case is $24,661. There is no data on the average dog bit case. My guess - and it is just a guess - is $100,000.
In Maryland, the owner of a dog is not liable for injuries caused by it unless the dog has a vicious propensity and the owner knows that. Once established that the dog is vicious and the owner knew about it, the owner has to keep the dog from biting people. In fact, proof of negligence on the part of the owner of the dog is unnecessary. In other words, it is perfectly okay to have a vicious dog. But dog owners of vicious dogs must make sure others are protected from their vicious dog.
We get a lot of questions about suing someone who has passed. It is not fun to sue a dead person but you have to do what you have to do to ensure a recovery for your client. Thankfully, you are suing the estate almost invariably in name only and their is an insurance company standing behind the lawsuit.
If the decedent had an estate, it is pretty easy: you sue the estate and serve the personal representative. Click here for an outline of how to handle this situation if you have a decedent defendant in a Maryland accident case.
We have heard some version of this story hundreds of times: client gets into an accident and hires a lawyer they either found in the yellow pages, on television or from a “friend of a friend.” After some time passes, they realize that while their lawyer may be a nice person, the lawyer is not a seasoned accident lawyer who focuses their career on maximizing the amount of money the client recovers in an injury claim. The accident victim gets on the Internet, researches carefully who the best accident lawyers in Maryland are, and calls our law firm.
First, if you are unhappy with your accident lawyers, you can switch law firms at any time you want. Still, you need to consider whether on not you are better served staying with the lawyer that you have. It may be that you are expecting too much and that your current accident lawyer is doing everything possible to further your case. We always suggest if you are thinking of firing your accident lawyer, but you are not sure whether you should, sit down with your current lawyer and see if your questions can be resolved to your satisfaction.
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).
A hard to believe but apparently true truck accident statistic was reported today in a new study reported in the in the New York Times. Video cameras were placed in trucks found that the trucks risks of an accident was 23 times greater than when not texting while driving.
Think about that: 23 times. Incredible statistic that begs the Maryland legislature to pass a law to ban texting while driving.
The Maryland Court of Appeals decided Lanay v. Daniel Realty, another lead paint case. I just summarized a lead paint CSA case yesterday, so you are not going to get a full summary of this case, at least not today. But the basic issue in the case is when can you read in the deposition or discovery answers of a party who is no longer a party? The short, take-home message for Maryland accident lawyers is don’t assume you can read in the discovery answers of a party in a multiple party case if you think there is any chance that one of the defendants might have settle out or be dismissed from the case.
Interestingly, this appeal was marred by the fact that there was a technical malfunction with the audio recording device during the trial in Baltimore City, which made the record sketchy.
You can find the case here.
The New York Times has an article how the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration chose not to make public hundreds of pages of research and warnings about the relationship between cell phones and car accidents. Why? Higher-ups at the NHTSA claim that the motivating force was concerns about angering Congress. I'm sure this may be what the NHTSA officials were told, but the reason for the information being withheld is that the agency was sticking to its mission of gathering safety data, not lobbying states. Doesn’t this sound more like the Bush administration to you than it does Congress?
Apparently, the data showed that hands-free headsets did not eliminate car accidents, because cell phone conversation was what causes the distraction, not just the holding of the cell phone. To date, no state has banned entirely the use of cell phones while driving.
I’ve never seen data estimating how many Maryland car accidents are caused by cell phone usage. But I think the Maryland legislature should take a look at this study and consider what our law should be in Maryland on cell phone usage while driving a car. Cell phone use is still on the rise and Maryland accident lawyers already have enough business.
Maryland needs to decide if we are playing Russian Roulette every time we drive down a two lane highway at 50 miles an hour, either talking on a cell phone, or with someone coming at us from the opposite direction talking on a cell phone.
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.
I received an email last week from a lawyer asking me to send them a recent Maryland Court of Special Appeals Court opinion that I wrote about by failed to properly link to the case. You can find Maryland appellate court opinions here.
A goal of mine is to pull out all of the Maryland accident appellate opinions and categorize them. Alas, this has remained just a goal.
Howard County is trying to do its part to prevent auto accidents in Maryland: an executive order has been issued prohibiting Howard County employees from sending or reading texts or e-mails while driving.
“The research and statistics are there: distracted driving causes accidents,” County Executive Ken Ulman said in a statement. His order cites the statistic that driver inattention causes approximately 80% of car accidents in Maryland. Ulman announced the order Thursday while attending a meeting of the Maryland Highway Safety Foundation.
Maryland does not have a ban against text messaging or emailing while driving. Why? Opponents of such a bill argue that it would lead to a ban on all distractions - not only car radios and GPS devices, but speedometers, dashboard lights, anything and everything that can divert attention and cause car accidents. Opponents of the text messaging ban also argue that there is no telling how many accidents are actually caused by texting while driving and the law is impossible to enforce.
Those are three arguments. The first tries to lump car stereos in with speedometers, taking a drink of coffee and looking at a clock. Good argument tactic, but silly. Texting is harder than changing the radio or checking out the time, and it is going to cause more accidents than those tasks. The relative degrees of risk and common sense are what prevent this slippery slope.
The second argument is also specious. Clearly, we don't need auto accident statistics to know that it is incredibly dangerous to take your attention away from driving to type a full word or sentence on your phone.
The final argument is that it is unenforceable. Making such conduct against the law sends a message. Moreover, if we start taking all of the unenforceable laws we have in Maryland off the books, we are not going to have many laws left. Enforceability should not be a basis for regulating what is appropriate conduct.
If Maryland passed such a law, would it save a single child's life? The answer is almost certainly yes. What kind of freedom would we have to give up for that life? The inalienable right to text message?
So far, Maryland has not joined Alaska, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Louisiana, Minnesota, New Jersey, Washington and Washington, D.C. in banning text messaging while driving. But hopefully, Maryland will next year.
If you have been seriously injured in a car accident in Maryland - including Maryland accidents that occur as the result of text messaging - call 800-553-8082 to speak to a Maryland auto accident lawyer or click here for a free initial auto accident injury consultation.
