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Our lawyers spend a lot of time trying to make our community a better place and we do pro bono work helping victims.  For us, this often involves helping clients whose cases we cannot take. We do things like fighting for children to help them get the help they need from the school system or assisting victims who are trying to manage the damages from their car accident case.  We spend hundreds of hours a year on this type of pro bono work for the community.

One question we occasionally get from prospective clients is whether we accept personal injury cases on a pro bono basis. The answer to this question is no.  If you google “pro bono personal injury lawyer Baltimore”, the response you get is crickets.

People are sometimes surprised to hear that.  It is not that personal injury and malpractice lawyers don’t care about helping people in need. I know we care very much about that. Fighting for the “little guy” is the underlying theme of our law practice. We love to go out and battle with big insurance companies to get financial compensation for our hard-working clients.

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Maryland nursing home lawyers have been battling arbitration clauses for years. These clauses deny nursing home residents the right to take nursing homes to court for harm that they cause to the residents such as physical abuse and neglect and sexual assault.

Almost everyone realizes nursing homes force these agreements on residents as a precondition of admission. They are just not fair.

In 2016, the Maryland Court of Special Appeals decided Peeler v. FutureCare, which was a Miller & Zois case. In this case, FutureCare tried to use the arbitration clause to prevent a wrongful death claim. Our firm won at the trial level and won before the appellate court, making new clear law that a nursing home agreement cannot compel wrongful death beneficiaries to arbitrate. This new case pushes Maryland law further from enforcement of these draconian agreements.

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Defense lawyers in love blaming empty chairs.  A jury trial is about assigning blame and the easy out for the defense is to get the jury to blame another doctor who is not named at trial.  (This is also why plaintiffs’ lawyers get maligned over naming too many defendants — sometimes there is no choice.)

Usually, the doctor’s lawyer will not provide expert testimony to blame the doctor.  Normally,  the allegation is made indirectly with the hope that the jury blames a non-defendant doctor on their own.

This is a good strategy.  Jurors like reaching their own conclusions without getting beat over the head and most malpractice defense lawyers do not try to directly blame the empty chair for fear of running afoul of Maryland law.

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You are hurt. You are having a baby.  You need surgery.  You want to pick the best possible hospital in Maryland to treat you, right?   To make the right choice, you need some idea of the quality of the hospital that is treating you.

The Leapfrog Group, a non-profit watchdog organization, conducts biannual analysis and provides safety grades of health care systems found in each state across the country.

Leapfrog has done so since 2012. But the Leapfrog rankings excluded Maryland until 2017.

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Leg and arm amputation cases attract personal injury and malpractice lawyers in any jurisdiction, but particularly in states where there is a cap on noneconomic damages.  This is because there are great economic costs associated with artificial limbs and the injuries often have an impact on the victim’s ability to earn a living.  In most states, these costs are not subject to a cap on damages.

Life with a Limb

Fortunately, most of us do not have experience with what life is like living without a limb.  Our lawyers have seen what victims endure up close.  You can look at this day in the life video that our client has kindly allowed us to post.  This will give you some idea.  But, really, it was one of those things you really can’t KNOW unless you are living it.

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Our firm has handled thousands of Maryland car accident cases over the years. As discussed below, the law of negligence in Maryland is somewhat unique compared to most other states and it makes clear proof of fault for an accident more important.  This page will look at some of the unique features of Maryland auto tort law and how to properly manage them in order to recover money in an accident.

Maryland’s “Contributory Negligence” Rule

In Maryland, establishing clear, definitive fault after an auto accident is more important than in other jurisdictions. This is because Maryland is one of only a few remaining states in the country, which has an extremely onerous law called “contributory negligence.”

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Medicare is entitled to reimbursement for any payments that are related to an injury that is otherwise covered by insurance, including self-insurance, because it operates as a “secondary payer.”

This drives our clients crazy.  What do I have medical insurance for if I have to pay them back?   I get it.  Believe me. But under the Social Security Act, Medicare will not pay for a beneficiary’s medical expenses when payment “has been made or can reasonably be expected to be made under a worker’s compensation plan, an automobile or liability insurance policy or plan, or under no-fault insurance.”  So if you have a heart attack, no one is coming to look to you for payment.  But if you settle your case or get a verdict, Medicare wants its slice of the pie.

If a Medicare beneficiary receives a personal injury settlement they will be required to reimburse Medicare for any payments made on their behalf.  To enforce this requirement the law gives Medicare an automatic priority lien against any settlement proceeds in personal injury cases. Almost any party involved in the personal injury settlement or payment, including the attorneys, has responsibility for complying. Any settlement or payment must be reported to Medicare within 60 days and their valid lien amount must be paid.

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Pharmacies serve a critically important function in our health care system as prescription medication use is more widespread than ever.

Around 5 billion prescriptions get filled every year in the U.S.  The average pharmacist fills hundreds or even thousands of prescriptions every day and this responsibility involves more than just counting out pills.

There are more prescriptions than ever.  There are also more medication error mistakes and lawsuits in Baltimore than there have ever been.  This post gives you the inside story of what you can expect in pharmacy error lawsuits in Baltimore.

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Any discussion of how much money a medical malpractice case in Maryland is worth begins with our cap on non-economic damages in malpractice.  The pain and suffering cap for 2019 in Maryland medical negligence cases is $815,000.  This same $815,000 cap applies to wrongful death cases where there is only one surviving family member.

If there are two or more surviving family members, then the non-economic damage cap rises to $1,018,750.  The cap applies to the year the negligence or death occurred so it will be less for incidents before 2019.   (Click on the first link above to see the malpractice cap in Maryland for each year.)

What Maryland’s Damage Cap Means and Does Not Mean

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Defendants Just For Men® hair care products and dyes are sold at hundreds of local and national retailers, including Wal-Mart, Target, Walgreens, and CVS. Just for Men pitchmen like Keith Hernandez argue “Go from Grey to Great” but some are finding an unpleasant catch to the inexpensive hair and beard dye. Specifically, customers are complaining of painful reactions after using the product to clean up their patches of grey.

Just for Men’s manufacturer, Combe Incorporated, hasn’t issued a recall of their hair dye products and most negative reactions to the products are usually temporary. But for many middle-aged men hoping to hold onto that youthful look a little longer, Just for Men’s potential for skin irritation and other issues may do more to harm than help.

Consumer Complaints Old and New

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