Articles Posted in Medical Malpractice

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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 blame the empty chair directly for fear of running afoul of Maryland law.

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Hypoxic-Ischemic perinatal encephalopathy (“HIE” for short) is loss of oxygen to the brain. In slightly less than half of the cases, HIE can cause death or brain injuries.

What Causes HIE?

Obviously, the brain is the key to neurological function. The brain commands and controls all of our essential actions and reactions. This includes sending messages via neurotransmitters to control all of a person’s essential cognitive and physical functions. The brain is fed by blood and oxygen. All of our brains, especially the fetal brain in particular, are highly dependent on blood and oxygen to survive. If the fetal brain is deprived of blood and oxygen for a sufficient amount of time, it becomes permanently damaged by hypoxia and ischemia. Not only does the brain need oxygen, but the cells need oxygen too. Some birth injury cases (we are handling one now) involve damage to other vital organs that have suffered irreparable injury from lack of oxygen during the birthing process. Without oxygen, the vital cells in the brain and other organs shut down. To make matters worse, dead cells give off toxins which are called cytokines and which cause additional injuries above and beyond the ischemic injury initially caused by the lack of oxygen. The amount of time that the brain is deprived of oxygen is critical to the baby’s outcome. If the child’s brain is deprived of blood and oxygen for an extended period of time, 15 minutes is the amount of time often mentioned, then the brain becomes permanently damaged. The result is a brain that cannot provide normal neurological function, meaning that the person with the brain injury loses the mental and physical abilities to move, think, and live the way their DNA intended. The result in some cases could be cerebral palsy, spastic quadriplegia, seizures, epilepsy, and/or developmental and cognitive delays.
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Recently I was contacted by a very nice lady who was looking for an injury lawyer to handle a case involving the wrongful death of a family member in a Baltimore nursing home.

baltimore nursing home malpracticeWe handle a lot of nursing home cases and this call was very typical.  We get a lot of calls on nursing home cases, particularly when a serious injury or death is involved. It’s normal for a traumatic event like this to leave grief-stricken family members looking for answers.  In nursing home negligence claims, surviving family members call because they see the care at the nursing home.  In many of them, the care provided is awful.  Then, their mother/father/wife/husband/brother/sister dies.  They are calling to see if two plus two equals four.  Quite often, it does.

In this case, the caller was herself a licensed nurse-practitioner who had very specific information about exactly what she believed was done wrong. This is unusual simply because she had specialized knowledge that the average person would not.

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