Maryland Personal Injury Lawyer Blog

A man paralyzed in a tubing accident sued a ski resort for 25 million dollars.His lawye said the man zipped headfirst down the tubing course through the rubber mats intended to slowhim down and crashed headfirst into a cement wall. The man is now paralyzed from the waist down.
According to the association 39 skiers and snowboarders suffered fatal injuries during the 2008-09 season in which 10 million people skied. But lawsuits for ski resorts are not unusual. This lawsuit argues that the resort was negligent in setting up and operating the snow tube runs and accuses the resort of "failure to design a barrier wall with sufficient safety protection". The lawyer further states that more advanced technology was available but wasnt in place and the existing barier had some pading but lacked sufficient give to save his client.
The lawsuit asks for 25 million in compensatory damages and $350,000 in punitive damages.The 55 year old victim will need a lifetime of care and medical bills and needs a full time aid also.

If you or a loved one has been a victim of negligence resulting in injury please call my office at 1 800 320-0080 for a free consultation.

A jury has found an aluminum bat maker liable for failure to provide adequate warnings as to the dangers of the bat used by a player during a game which resulted in another player's death. The company was ordered to pay $792,000 to deceased estate for the loss of earnings he would have made, and pain suffered before his death.

The 18-year-old boy was playing in a baseball game when another player hit a ball with an aluminum bat. The ball then hit the victim in his temple. He died four hours later. His parents argued that aluminum bats are more dangerous than wooden bats because they allow players to swing the bat harder and faster. The Plaintiff's attorney said that the average time needed by a pitcher to defend a batted ball is 400 milliseconds and the victim only had 378 milliseconds to respond. Witnesses to the incident testified that they were unable to see the ball between the time that it was struck by the batter until it hit victim.

Sports injuries and sometimes fatalities are the most horrible tragedies that any parent or family may have to go through as a result of a company/manufacturers' negligence. The injuries and their causality are very difficult to overcome and with the aid of the right expert knowledgable in these fields a positive outcome may be possible.

If you or a loved one has been subjected to these types of injuries please contact me at my Rockville or baltimore offices at (800) 320-0080 for a free consultation.

A major Hospital settled a wrongful-death case with the family of a victim for $900,000. The case stemmed from the victim's death seven days after suffering a massive head injury due to a fall in the operating room as she was being prepared for transfer to her hospital bed. The fall caused a fractured skull and severe internal bleeding. The victim fell and broke her hip at home and was rushed to the emergency room. There it was determined that she would need surgery.
The next day, surgery was performed to repair her left hip. However, following the surgery, while the victim was still under anesthesia and had a breathing tube in her mouth, she fell as medical personnel were preparing to transfer her to her bed. A nurse had removed the belt on the surgical table in preparation to move her but did not announce that to others in the room. The family stated that they sued because they wanted to raise awareness about patient safety and to lead to changes in operating room procedures.

If you or a loved one are a victim of medical malpractice please contact my offices either in Rockville or Baltimore Md. at 1 800-320-0080 for a free consultation and case evaluation.

A City Council has agreed to pay $2.2 million to the family of a 14-year-old girl who was choked by playground equipment three years ago and suffered an irreversible brain injury and remains in a vegetative state. The victim was found unconscious hanging by the neck from a rope tied to a playground ride.

When a Police Department officer arrived, he concluded that the victim had no pulse and did not cut her down. He instructed first responders to not disturb her because it was a crime scene and he started to take pictures. It wasn't until six to eight minutes later that it was discovered that victim was still alive and she was treated. Her parents argued that the lack of oxygen during that time increased the severity of her brain injury. The City Council decided to settle due to the cost and uncertainty of litigation but did not admit any wrongdoing. Most of the award will go to a special needs trust set up for the victim's care, which is currently at a skilled nursing care facility.

The victim parents also received $7 million from the County Housing Authority who was in charge of maintaining the playground. the victim's doctors believe that she could live for another 16 years.

If you or a loved one has been injured due to negligence of another person or as a result of a defective condition call my offices at Rockville or Baltimore for a free initial consultation at 1-800-32-0080.

A Florida jury awarded a family 4.3 million dollars in a medical malpractice suit against two doctors for failing to properly diagnose their child shortly after birth. According to the allegations the doctors failed to properly perform the necessary tests to diagnose the newly born infant with enterovirus causing her to suffer from lifelong disabilities.

Shortly after the infant was born in 1994, large bruises began to appear and her skin turned yellow. Her liver showed signs of scarring and a blood clot formed in her brain. Her parents were advised to make funeral arrangements. The doctors ignored the symptoms that pointed to enterovirus, which is normally a mild virus that can become deadly in infants. The doctors failed to take blood and liver tests that would have identified the virus. Although the infant survived, the blood clot left her with a learning disability, she has severe vision problems and permanent cirrhosis of the liver.

If you or a loved one has been injured and is a victim of a medical malpractice contact me at my offices in Rockville, Md or Baltimore, Md for a free initial consultation at 1-800-320-0080.

The mother of 17-year-old female has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against a church-run treatment center and three of its former employees after she died while being restrained. The suit alleges that the victim was held by staff members in a prone position which caused her death.

The county coroner ruled that the victim's death was a homicide, saying that the teen suffocated and choked on her own vomit while employees restrained her. The President of the treatment center, who runs the center, stated that the staff is taught to use a face-up method to restrain patients. The face-down restraint position was banned in Ohio in November and several states and has been prohibited by several other agencies who oversee treatment homes and centers.

If you or your loved one has suffered an injury because of lack of supervision or failure to provide adequate monitoring at public or private facilities please visit my website at www.ostadlaw.com or call my Baltimore or Rockville office at 1-800-320-0080 for a free initial consultation.

The parents of minor filed a $40 million lawsuits against a Swim Club and the company that runs and manages the swim club, accusing them of failing to both "timely recognize and respond" to the struggling boy and to properly perform resuscitation efforts. In July 2006, a15-year-old male was swimming at the club where he almost drowned and was without adequate oxygen for almost 10 minutes. Paramedics were able to get a pulse back but the boy suffered severe brain damage and is now severely disabled, confined to a wheelchair and cannot speak.

The amount of the claim is said to be the best estimate of what it will cost to care for him for the rest of his life. The attorney for the swim club and management company says that minor child's brain injury was not caused by the near-drowning but instead by a heart attack that he suffered in the pool. The attorney states that he was pulled out of the pool less than a minute after he showed signs of struggling and never went to the bottom. He was given CPR immediately by a Maryland Shock Trauma nurse who happened to be at the pool at the time.

If you or your loved one has suffered an injury because of lack of supervision or failure to provide adequate monitoring at public or private facilities please visit my website at www.ostadlaw.com or call my Baltimore or Rockville office at 1-800-320-0080 for a free initial consultation.

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" »