Posted on August 01, 2008 in Infection Malpractice

A Missouri jury awarded $2.58 million this week to a couple in a medical malpractice case where a retiree got a staph infection and lost his right leg, part of his left foot, a kidney and some hearing. The jury than awarded $513,000 to the wife of the man, who quit her job to help care for her husband for the last four years. The jury found the doctor and the hospital liable for causing the man to suffer 15 surgeries, 84 days in hospitals, 137 visits to doctor’s offices, brain damage and having to learn to walk again with a prosthesis.

The man had a pacemaker installed and then was discharged several days later. The next month, he became sick and was diagnosed at another hospital with the infection. The infection led doctors there to remove the pacemaker, at which time they found golf-ball size masses of infection in his body. The plaintiff alleged that the defendant doctor installed the pacemaker even though there was redness on the right wrist of the patient from an IV, and the installation became the conduit for the infection to spread.

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 Posted on July 30, 2008 in Arbitration

It’s a familiar, but fallacious argument. A favorite of defense counsel and insurance companies in automobile accident cases: “There was a minor impact, therefore there can only be minor injury, if any injury at all.” Defense lawyers often try to introduce into evidence distorted, grainy or out of focus photographs of minimal property damage without providing any expert testimony about the causal relationship between the amount of property damage and the victim’s injuries. The purpose of this tactic is to disprove by false implication what has been proven by medical evidence; to rebut the testimony of a licensed physician that has reached an opinion to a reasonable degree of medical certainty that the victim’s injuries were caused by the accident in question. There is no mention of the sudden and very high energy forces that are transmitted through the vehicle in the milliseconds after the impact. No mention of the fact that most modern cars are built to withstand a 10-15 mile per hour rear impact without suffering significant property damage, particularly if you’re dealing with an SUV or truck.

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 Posted on July 29, 2008 in Automobile Accident

Under Maryland law, an individual or company that entrusts a motor vehicle to another person with knowledge that such person has a propensity for negligent or reckless driving may be held liable for injuries subsequently caused by that person in a motor vehicle collision. For example, a parent that has given a vehicle to a child as a birthday gift (or even if the parent has simply permitted the use of a family vehicle) with knowledge that the child has reckless driving habits may be held liable for personal injuries caused by the child in a motor vehicle collision. The child’s youth, maturity and inexperience behind the wheel may be relevant factors to consider in the appropriate case. Typically, in order to recover under a theory of negligent entrustment it must be shown that the supplier of the vehicle knew or should have known that the driver would operate the vehicle in a manner that posed an unreasonable risk of harm to others.

In some instances, this theory of recovery may apply to an employer that provides an employee with permission to use a company vehicle with knowledge that the employee-driver would be incompetent or reckless behind the wheel. A key component to this theory of liability is the degree of control over the vehicle exercised by the supplier of the vehicle at the time of the accident. The more control exercised by the supplier the better the chance for succeeding on a negligent entrustment claim. In certain circumstances, negligent entrustment can dramatically expand the opportunity to fully and adequately compensate a victim of personal injury.

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 Posted on July 28, 2008 in Product Liability and Medical Malpractice

Police in Boston and the local district attorney’s office recently defended their decision to hand over a possibly faulty ventilator to the manufacturer to let it examine the device that shut down during a power outage and led to the death of a 15-year-old. There is serious concern that sending it back to the manufacturer, Pulmonetic, without any independent oversight could result in evidence not being preserved or possible destroyed. The machine appears to be one of more than 10,000 machines that were recalled by the company in 2004 because of the potential for the backup battery to fail.

Normally, when there is potential or actual litigation in a product liability case, a potentially defective product is not examined without all sides to the litigation being present, to ensure that everybody agrees on how to examine the product, to make sure that no testing is done that could destroy evidence. Whenever I have been involved in a case involving a defective medical device or other product, I make sure that someone from my office and/or my expert witness is present at the testing to ensure that there is no destruction of evidence.

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 Posted on July 24, 2008 in Medical Malpractice Law in Maryland

The Massachusetts Supreme Court issued a written decision yesterday in a medical malpractice case, finding that doctors can be held liable for medical negligence that reduces a patient’s chance of survival, even if the patient’s probability for recovery was already less than 50 percent. The Massachusetts Supreme Court’s ruling came in a closely watched medical malpractice case. In 2004, a jury awarded $1 million to the family of a man whose cancer was overlooked by a doctor. The court upheld the jury’s award in its decision, ruling that Massachusetts law is such that if a doctor’s negligence reduces or eliminates the patient’s chance for recovery, the doctor still is liable for damages. A copy of the article regarding the case can be found here.

In Maryland medical malpractice cases, the law is different than in Massachusetts. In Maryland, in a case where a plaintiff seeks to prove that a doctor or hospital’s negligent failure to diagnose and/or treat cancer case has or will cause them to die, the plaintiff must prove that the doctor or hospital’s conduct caused them to go from having a probability of surviving the cancer (something greater than 50 percent) to having a probability of not surviving the cancer (something less than 50 percent). I have had many such cases. But if a patient only had a 40 percent probability of surviving the cancer before the malpractice, and now due to the malpractice the patient only has a 20 percent chance of surviving the cancer, that is considered a “loss of chance,” which Maryland does not recognize.

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 Posted on July 24, 2008 in Automobile Accident

Experienced Maryland plaintiff’s personal injury lawyers know to sue the employer when its employee commits an act of negligence causing personal injury. Often times the injured victim can recover damages from the employer if the tortuous act was committed by an employee acting within the scope of the employment relationship. In Maryland, this is called the doctrine of respondeat superior.

The doctrine of respondeat superior, in Maryland, allows an employer to be held vicariously liable for the tortuous conduct of its employee when that employee was acting within the scope of the employment relationship. With regard to the negligent use of motor vehicles in a respondeat superior claim, the State of Maryland recognizes that a master can be held liable for the negligent operation of a servant’s motor vehicle if the master expressly or impliedly consents to the use of the automobile, and……had the right to control the servant in its operation, or else the use of the automobile was of such vital importance in furthering the master’s business that his control over it might reasonably be inferred. Thus, the doctrine of respondeat superior may be properly invoked if the master has expressly or impliedly, authorized the [servant] to use his personal vehicle in the execution of his duties, and the employee is in fact engaged in such endeavors at the time of the accident.

When the plaintiff’s lawyer can properly establish this relationship between the employer and the employee, a personal injury victim can collect for damages against the employer. For more information on this topic, please contact an experienced Maryland personal injury lawyer.

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 Posted on July 24, 2008 in Motorcycle Accidents

A Maryland man was tragically killed yesterday when the motorcycle he was driving was struck head-on by a car that crossed a double yellow line in Carroll County, Maryland.The Baltimore Sun reports that the victim was flown to Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore and died shortly thereafter. The driver of the vehicle that crossed the double yellow line was 80 years old.

I have represented many seriously injured victims and fatalities from motorcycle accidents in Maryland. Motorcycle accident cases are often tragic because the injuries sustained by the cyclist are often exponentially worse due to the lack of protection. Fortunately Maryland requires motorcycle riders to wear a helmet, but often the head injuries-even with a helmet-are devastating.

As a lawyer resenting motorcyclist, I often hear from my clients that they are particularly careful when riding a motorcycle because of the limited protection. Unfortunately, in instances such as this when a negligent driver crosses the double yellow line, the accident is unavoidable. For more information on the nuances of motorcycle in jury law in Maryland, please contact me for a free consultation.

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 Posted on July 23, 2008 in Armed Robbery

An experienced Maryland Criminal Attorney must have a thorough understanding of the defense of coercion and duress which is also called a necessity defense. I represented a defendant in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County Maryland today in which I investigated a necessity defense but ultimately concluded that such a defense was not viable under the particular facts of this case. Before going into the facts of my case today, here is a synopsis of the coercion and duress or necessity defense.

It is a defense to all crimes other than the taking of a life of an innocent person that the defendant acted under coercion or duress. The most common defense of this type is self-defense or its cousin, defense of others. It also applies to situtions where a person is coerced into committing a crime by an imminent and impending threat of death or serious bodily injury if the act is not committed. There also must not have been an opportunity to escape. If there was a legitmate opportunity to escape that is not acted upon, then the defense is not available. This is essentially the situation that I was faced with in my case and why I was unable to use the duress and coercion or necessity defense.

My client is an 18 year old boy with no prior criminal record. He came to me charged with Armed Robbery, First Degree Assault, Use of A Handgun in the Commission of a Crime of Violence and several lesser included offenses. In appearance he is small and slight and looks more like a member of the chess club that a violent armed felon. One day several months ago he was called by his 28 year old brother who has a long criminal record that includes both drug charges and crimes of violence. The brother asked my client to come pick him up to take him somewhere and the client agreed. When he arrived at his brother’s house the brother got into the car and told him they had to pick up a few friends. They drove to another house where two other men got into the car, one with a shotgun and one with a handgun. Both of these men are in their late twenties and like my client’s brother, have long violent criminal records.

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 Posted on July 23, 2008 in Hospital Malpractice

A Pittsburgh jury has found that the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center at Shadyside was negligent in a patient’s death and awarded $2.5 million for wrongful death. The case alleged that a young man died after a brain abscess was not treated in time by the staff at the hospital. The jury actually issued a statement saying, “It is our belief that UPMC Shadyside’s policies, culture, and lack of competent supervision resulted in the death of Michael Rettger.” The young man, who was an accountant, was in West Virginia in November 2003 to perform an audit of another hospital when he began vomiting and reporting a headache. The man then was admitted to that hospital, and a CT scan and MRI revealed a large, swelling mass in his brain. The man was transferred to UPMC Shadyside in order to be closer to home.

I have successfully handled a number of medical malpractice / medical negligence / medical error cases in Baltimore and other counties in Maryland, and in Washington, D.C., involving the failure of hospitals to timely diagnose and treat patients with brain and other conditions. Of course, one has to obtain the medical records and retain proper experts in these cases, such as neurosurgeons and radiologists, to determine what really happened. But what is also critical in these type of cases is to obtain the hospital’s written standards to determine how the hospital expected its people to act, and to then take the depositions of the people most involved with the care and treatment of the patient, to understand what they did and whether they complied with hospital policies.

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 Posted on July 22, 2008 in Automobile Accident

A Florida jury returned a verdict of $21.62 million in a wrongful death and survivor action where a 32 year old woman was rear-ended by another driver talking on her cell phone while driving. The force of the rear-end collision pushed the decedent’s car across the median strip and into oncoming traffic. She was killed when an SUV struck her vehicle head-on.

The decedent’s husband, individually and on behalf of his wife’s estate, and their two minor children sued the driver of the vehicle and the company that owned the driver’s car. The vehicle had been given to the driver’s husband for company business.

Incredibly, the defendants claimed that the rear-impact was minor and was not forceful enough to push the decedent’s vehicle across the median strip. The defendants argued that the decedent had accidentally accelerated after the impact and that the car that struck her when her vehicle was pushed into oncoming traffic failed to take appropriate action to avoid the collision. The defendant driver also maintained that she wasn’t talking on her cell phone at the time of the collision. The plaintiffs, however, subpoenaed the driver’s cell phone records, which indicated that she was talking on the phone with her husband at the precise time of the collision.

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