Maryland Personal Injury Lawyer Blog

The Centers for Disease Control ("CDC")estimates that 2 million hospital-acquired infections occur each year resulting in 90,000 deaths. It is estimated that another 1.5 million infections occur in long-term care facilities. Many people are filing and winning medical malpractice lawsuits due to acquiring these infections while in the hospital for other reasons.

Medical-malpractice defense attorneys argue that even if every hospital protocol is followed to prevent the spread of these infections, that a hospital cannot prevent all spreads. Plaintiff's attorneys argue that when the protocols are followed the spread of the infections decreases significantly. In order to win a malpractice claim, the plaintiff must be able to trace the infection and that the patient got the infection due to the hospitals negligence.

The CDC has published new guidelines for hospitals to prevent infections. Plaintiff's attorneys is perusing a malpractice claim will need an expert to say that if these precautions had been followed, the patient would not have contracted the infection. The most basic of precautions are needed to prevent the spread which include hand-washing between patients and having hospital staff do routine sterilization of the facility.

To speak to an experienced Maryland medical malpractice lawyer please contact my law offices in Baltimore or Rockville at 1(800)320-0080.

Judge John W. Debelius III, a Montgomery County Circuit court judge, held that the state's limit on medical malpractice awards only applies to lawsuits that were first submitted to arbitration. In November 2008, a jury awarded $5.8 million in the death of 47-year-old Richard H. Semsker whose untreated mole turned into skin cancer that spread to his brain. The award included $3 million in compensation for anguish he, his wife and two daughters endured during his illness and his death. That portion would have been reduced to the statutory limit of $812,500 if the cap had been applied.

Judge Debelius, in Rockville, found that the 2004 Maryland Patient's Access to Quality Health Care Act's cap has an exception for the cases that did not first go to voluntary arbitration. He stated that the change in wording in the legislation "had the effect of narrowing the ambit of the statute from general application to all medical malpractice actions to application to only certain medical-malpractice actions. The current cap for non-economic damages in med-mal cases is $665,000 for cases with one claimant and $831,000 for those with multiple claimants while in other personal injury actions the cap is $710,000 per beneficiary.

To speak to an experienced medical malpractice lawyer in Maryland please contact my law offices in Baltimore or Rockville at 1(800)320-0080

On May 3, 2002, Adrienne Young-Battle, a graphic artist, was bit by her neighbor's Labrador retriever on her hand. Young-Battle sued the dogs owners, Leila and Michael Bijou, for $250,000 plus interests and costs. After a jury trial in Prince George's County, the jury awarded her $501,480 which was modified to $500,311.44. The Bijou's filed a motion for new trial or remittitur which were both denied. They filed an appeal. Young-Battle then filed a motion in the Court of Special Appeals for leave to amend her complaint to conform the ad damnum clause to the jury award.

The Court of Special Appeals found that Young-Battle could only receive a judgment up to the original amount of $250,000 since she did not amend her complaint before final judgment. The Court wrote that "Amendment of an ad damnum clause at the appellate level renders the requirement that the demand for money judgment included the amount sought with little or no meaning, and deprives the defendant of notice at the trial level of damages sought." Young-Battle could have amended her ad damnum clause after the jury verdict and before the final judgment was entered but waiting for the appellate level was too little, too late. She now has to either sign a release to the Court of the excess over the ad damnum or have her entire judgment reversed with prejudice.

It is always good practice to file suit for a larger amount than anticipated or immediately file and amendment to conform to the judgment prior to entry of the same.

To speak to an experienced personal injury attorney in Maryland please contact my Baltimore or Rockville law offices at 1(800) 320-0080.

According to published reports the use of independent medical examiners, or Independent Medical Examinations ("IME") as most insurance companies would call it, or Defense Medical Examinations ("DME") has come into question due to discrepancies between the exam of the person and the report of the doctor. Under the workers' compensation system, workers with bona fide injuries are entitled to medical care and replacement wages which are usually paid for by their employer's insurer. Independent exams are used to weed out workers who exaggerate injuries or get unnecessary care by having a neutral exam by a doctor that the insurance company selects and pays for. A review of case files published by the NYT found that the exam reports are routinely tilted to benefit insurers by minimizing or dismissing injuries.

Under Maryland Rules the insurers must seek a court order to have the injured person examined by a Defense Medical Examiner, unless both the Plaintiff and the insurer agree otherwise. Claimants are permitted to bring anyone along they choose to witness or film the sessions. But this has not stopped the doctors from saying one thing in the exam and putting the exact opposite on the report. For example, my Baltimore office had a case where the DME doctor examined an injured person whom we represented and provided two different reports with completely different scenario and opinions. A good practitioner can take advantage of these discrepancies and discredit the doctor's opinions based on his own reports.

For their part, the doctors argue that they do not write the final reports but instead either send a transcription or a checklist into the entities who the insurers go through to get the doctor appointments. The doctors then receive the report back and sign off, but as one doctor put it "I just sign them...If I read them all, I'd have them coming out of my ears and I'd never have time to talk to my wife. They want speed and volume. That's the name of the game." The insurers use of Defense Medical Examinations, that are not so independent, is a practice that is depriving many legitimately injured people from receiving the compensation they deserve and need.

Continue reading "Baltimore Personal Injury Report -- Independent Exams for Injured Workers May Not Be So Independent" »