Articles Posted in Trial Strategy

I just finished a two-day jury trial in the Circuit Court for Cecil County. Based solely on the preceding sentence, any experienced Maryland personal injury lawyers reading this probably have an idea where this post is going.

I was trying one of the most difficult types of cases to present to a jury. A rear-end collision with no visible damage to the vehicles involved, allegations of a fairly serious injury, and venue in a rural, conservative county with a (well-deserved) reputation for not being plaintiff-friendly.

The defendant driver claimed that she merely took her foot off her brake pedal a little too early while stopped at a traffic signal and drifted into the back of my client’s car. The photos of the vehicle damage supported this version of events- there was no damage visible.

I was just having a conversation with a former colleague who defends against personal injury cases, mostly auto and truck collisions. We were discussing a trial he had recently finished, and he had remarked to me that he thought the plaintiff was poorly prepared for his testimony at trial. Basically, he thought the jury would have awarded the plaintiff more money if he had been better prepared.

This confirms my own experience. Client preparation is something many personal injury lawyers do not do very well. I’m not sure if this is because of the time pressure created by a busy practice, or because of a simple lack of awareness of how important client prep is to success at trial.

At Miller & Zois, one of the fundamental principles of our personal injury trial practice is that we strive to get the most out of the portions of our case that we control. Perhaps the biggest thing in a trial that you have some degree of control over is the presentation of the client. The old saw that a personal injury trial is a “beauty contest” is true. If the plaintiff is not credible and likable, it will be very tough to get a good result.

Here in Maryland, we have a procedure that allows a Plaintiff’s medical records and bills to be admitted into evidence without the testimony of a medical provider. This requires service of a list of the records to be offered at least sixty days before trial. This procedure is available in any case filed in the District Court of Maryland, or any case in a Maryland Circuit Court that is filed within the jurisdictional limit of the District Court, presently $30,000.00.

The defense also has the ability to admit a medical report using the same procedure. Often, insurance company lawyers will hire a doctor to review the medical records of the Plaintiff and other documents and then create a “peer review” report. Usually, this report says something like the plaintiff treated for an unreasonable period of time, the plaintiff’s injuries are less severe than claimed, or the medical bills are unnecessary, unreasonable, or not related to the accident.

In cases in the District Court, these reports are easy to address because judges are used to seeing them and are usually familiar with how they are created. It gets trickier when the case is to be tried before a jury (usually when the defense requests a jury trial). Here are some tips for attacking these kinds of reports in jury trials.

I was thinking about this topic because Monday morning I found myself in a very unusual place for a personal injury lawyer- United States Bankruptcy Court. How did I end up there?

I have an auto accident injury case pending in the Circuit Court for Charles County. I represent a plaintiff who was injured when another driver rear-ended her. During the course of litigation, it came out that the defendant had a pending bankruptcy claim.

Defense counsel filed a Suggestion of Bankruptcy in the state court case. Pursuant to federal law, that case was stayed until resolution of the bankruptcy. This would be a bad thing because it would mean that my injured plaintiff would wait more or less indefinitely to get her case moving.