Posted on June 27, 2008 in Cancer Malpractice

An Indiana jury has decided that a medical clinic must pay $2.75 million to a former patient for failing to test a tumor removed from the woman’s foot. A doctor later found that a second tumor removed from the foot was malignant. Jurors awarded an additional $500,000 to the woman’s husband.

This case involves a complete failure to test the first tumor, and the failure to alert the patient to the fact that the tumor wasn’t tested. That is a clear mistake, and is certainly medical negligence according to the standard of care. I have handled a number of cases before where tests were not properly done or interpreted.

In one such medical malpractice case in Maryland, a young girl’s leg was hurting, so her mother took her to a Baltimore hospital to be examined. The doctor didn’t want to do an x-ray, but the mother insisted. After the x-ray, the mother was told that she would be called if the x-ray was abnormal. No one ever called. Over the 8 months, the child’s leg pain got worse. When the mother decided to take her daughter to another hospital for a second opinion. That hospital asked the mother to get a copy of the x-rays from the first hospital. When the mother called the first hospital, they couldn’t find the x-rays. The mother then went to the first hospital in person, to try and get the x-rays. When she got there, she was told that the x-rays were just being read. She didn’t understand, as it has been many months since she and her daughter had been there. On her way to the second hospital, the mother got a call from the first hospital telling her that the x-ray showed evidence of bone cancer. It turned out that the films were never read until the day the mother went to pick up the films. That eight month delay in the bone cancer diagnosis allowed the cancer to spread / metastasize. As a result, the girl died before her 20th birthday. What a tragic case. Obviously, that medical malpractice case settled for a substantial amount.

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 Posted on June 26, 2008 in Illegal Search And Seizure

I had a CDS Possession case in which my client was alleged to have been in possession of both marijuana and cocaine this afternoon in Essex District Court in Baltimore County Maryland. As an Aggressive Maryland Criminal Attorney the first thing I look at in CDS Possession or Driving Under the Influence (DUI) or Driving While Impaired) (DWI) cases is whether or not the police officer had probable cause to stop and ultimately search my client for contraband. In a case that I recently handled in Baltimore City Maryland Circuit Court, the officer may have had probable cause to stop my client but he did not have probable cause to search my client’s person or his motor vehicle.

The officer told my client that he pulled him over for illegally dark tinting of his windows. Once my client showed him the documentation that the tinting was in fact legal (35%) he said that my client wasn’t wearing his seat belt, which according to my client was untrue. Accepting the officer’s version of the facts is unfortunately a necessary evil in evaluating the Constitutionality of a vehicle stop and/or a search because more often than not the judge is going to give more weight to the police officer’s version of the events than he or she will the defendant’s version. And it is a judge, not a jury, who decides whether or not a stop or a search is legal. The officer then called in a K-9 dog to scan the outside of the vehicle which is legal without probable cause as the court’s have consistently ruled that a person has no expectation of privacy in the outside of his or her motor vehicle.

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 Posted on June 25, 2008 in Altered / False Medical Records - Medical Malpractice

A New Jersey doctor’s medical license has just been suspended after regulators determined that he performed the wrong surgery on a patient, by removing the wrong lung, then tried to cover up the error. The New Jersey Board found Dr. Santusht Perera removed a portion of the patient’s right lung when he should have been removing a tumor in the left lung. According to the Board, the surgeon then told the patient that the right lung contained a life-threatening tumor, though there was no such growth. He also altered the patient’s records to show he intended to operate on the right lung. The board determined that Perera’s actions constituted gross negligence. A copy of the article regarding the case can be found here.

While most medical care is good, sadly there are significant number of doctors and hospital staff who commit serious medical malpractice / medical mistakes each day. In the case above, the patient’s healthy lung was removed while the cancerous lung was left unaltered. As if that is not bad enough, the doctor then tried to cover up his mistake. Like in this case, the doctor usually gets caught.

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 Posted on June 25, 2008 in Breathalyzer

Maryland DUI Attorney – Maryland DWI Attorney – Maryland DUI Lawyer – Maryland DWI Lawyer

Just about the first question people routinely ask me when they find out that I am an Aggressive DUI/DWI Attorney is should they or shouldn’t they take the Breathalyzer if they are stopped by a police officer after they have been drinking. The answer to the question is somewhat more complicated than it used to be given recent changes in Maryland DUI/DWI law.

In the case of first offenders, my advice prior to January 1, 2006 used to be to tell the person go ahead and take the test if he believes that he is significantly under the influence. The rationale for this advice was that taking the test in no way prevents a person from later asserting Constitutional defenses such as an illegal stop or an illlegal arrest which are really the only viable defenses in most DUI cases these days for reasons I will explain in the next paragraph; and taking the test only subjected a person to 45 day restricted license, regardless of the person’s blood alcohol level, as opposed to a 120 day outright suspension or a year with the interlock device if the person refused the test.

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 Posted on June 24, 2008 in Maryland Criminal Procedure

The Court of Appeals of Maryland recently approved new discovery rules for criminal cases in Maryland, which will go into effect on July 1, 2008. The Court rescinded the previous versions of Maryland Rule 4-262, which governed discovery in the District Court, and Maryland Rule 4-263, which governed discovery in the Circuit Court, and replaced both rules in their entirety. The new rules incorporate more extensive discovery requirements for both the State’s Attorney and the Defendant than those contained in the old rules. Both rules were also expanded to include definitions. The changes to the rules are summarized below and copies of the new rules are attached.

A. Circuit Court:

Changes for the State:

The State’s Attorney’s disclosure requirements were expanded under the new rules, and in addition, some material that was previously available only upon request must now be provided to the Defendant without the necessity of a request. The new rule requires the State to make its disclosures within 30 days after the earlier of the first appearance by the Defendant before the Court or the appearance of counsel. Md. Rule 4-263(h)(1).
Without request, the State’s Attorney must now disclose:

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 Posted on June 24, 2008 in Automobile Accident

Experienced Maryland personal injury attorneys can help parents or guardians recovery money for injuries suffered by their children in automobile accidents. Whether or not the parent a guardian was involved in the car crash that injured the child is irrelevant to whether a parent/guardian can collect on behalf of the minor child.

Maryland children injured in automobile accidents have the right to recover monetary damages from one of three sources. A knowledgeable personal injury attorney will know how to collect from: 1) The driver of the vehicle in which they were riding. 2) The driver of the vehicle which struck them 3) Their parent/guardian’s automobile insurance. A parent or guardian need not be involved in the accident which caused their child’s injuries in order to collect monies on their behalf.

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 Posted on June 24, 2008 in Automobile Accident

Metro has agreed to pay $2.3 million to settle a wrongful death lawsuit brought by a man whose wife was killed when she was struck by a Metrobus last year. The man who brought the lawsuit wanted to hold Metro accountable when it struck and killed his wife and his wife’s friend, both of whom were walking in a crosswalk at the time of the incident.

In Maryland, every year numerous individuals are injured by the negligence of the drivers and operators of various methods of mass transportation, whether it’s an MTA bus, the Lightrail or the Metro. When mass transit operators have caused injury, through error or negligence, it is important that they be held accountable. This level of accountability is a profound way to bring about changes that may be advantageous to, and further protect, the health and welfare of the public in general. This level of accountability is also a means to redress whatever wrong or violation may have occurred.

When an individual is seriously injured in a collision involving a bus, metro train, Lightrail or other means of mass transportation, it is important to consult an experienced trial lawyer to determine whether a lawsuit is warranted and necessary. Such cases are extremely important to pursue so that adequate compensation can be obtained for an injured victim so that he or she can get the best medical and other care under the circumstances.

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 Posted on June 23, 2008 in Medication Malpractice

A Delaware jury has awarded a family $1.6 million in a medical malpractice case in which the wrong prescription medicine was allegedly prescribed by a doctor. In this particular case, the woman was given too much of a heart medication for her kidneys to handle. Since she was on dialysis, her body couldn’t process the amount of the drug that they gave her and she died.

These days, with more and more prescription drugs on the market, it is all to easy for doctors to make a mistake and prescribe the wrong medicine, or the wrong dose. Sometimes a doctor’s handwriting is so bad that the pharmacy can’t read the writing, and the pharmacy doesn’t call the doctor to clarify the handwriting, leading to serious and sometimes fatal prescription / medication errors.

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 Posted on June 23, 2008 in Controlled Dangerous Substances (CDS)

Maryland Criminal Attorney – Maryland Criminal Lawyer – Baltimore Criminal Attorney – Baltimore Criminal Lawyer In all criminal cases there are basically two types of defenses: legal defenses and factual defenses. Legal defenses are common in possession with the intent to distribute narcotics cases, rape, robbery, murder and burglary cases, as well as driving under the influence (DUI) and domestic violence cases. To determine whether a legal defense exists in a particular case an aggressive criminal attorney will typically ask several questions of the defendant such as: Were you read your Miranda Rights prior to giving the police a statement? Did the police show you a search warrant and leave you a copy of same? Did you consent to the search of your home, car or person? These questions will help an aggressive criminal attorney begin his investigation into whether the police violated the client’s rights either by conducting an illegal search or illegally obtaining a statement.

If the attorney believes that a Constitutional violation has occurred he will file a motion to suppress the evidence and follow up that motion with a memorandum of law to support it. The first questions an aggressive criminal attorney will ask are questions such as: I am currently representing a client who had a large amount of narcotics seized from his apartment pursuant to a warrant that I believe was both stale (that is the events making up the probable cause happened too long ago to support the warrant) and lacked a nexus to his apartment where the police recovered the cocaine.

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 Posted on June 23, 2008 in Federal Criminal Defense

The United States Supreme Court decision of United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005) restored the Federal Disstrict Judge’s ability to fashion a sentence tailored to the unique circumstances of each case and each criminal defendant by requiring courts to consider factors other than the sentencing range prescribed by the United States Sentencing Guidelines. Thus, although the trial courts still must take the Sentencing Guidelines into account, Booker rendered the Sentencing Guidelines advisory.

Now in federal criminal cases in Maryland and across the country, the sentencing guideline range is no longer binding on the Court, but is only one of several factors to be considered in determining the sentence. The other factors the Court is directed to consider are: (1) the nature and circumstances of the offense and the history and characteristics of the defendant; (2) the need for the sentence imposed to reflect the seriousness of the offense, to afford adequate deterrence, to protect the public from further crimes of the defendant, and to provide the defendant with needed educational or vocational training, medical care or other correctional treatment; (3) the kinds of sentence available; (4) the need to avoid unwarranted sentencing disparity; and (5) the need to provide restitution.

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