Maryland Personal Injury Blog

Tractor-Trailer Carrying Milk Overturns In Howard County

Chrissie Cole — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 18:59:00 GMT

A tractor-trailer, carrying milk, overturned Wednesday morning on I-95 to Route 32 West in Howard County.

The driver of the truck, Gary Hines, 35, of Severn, suffered minor injuries and was transported to Howard County General Hospital. According to officials, Hines has been charged with negligent driving.

No milk spilled from the truck, said police. But the ramp was closed for a short time while the damaged truck and debris were removed from the scene.

For more information on these types of accidents, visit our Tractor Trailer Help Center where you can find several helpful articles such as How to Stay Safe and Avoid a Tractor-Trailer Accident.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Chrissie Cole

Maryland Legislature Considers Criminal Liability for Adults Giving Alcohol to Minors

Steve Silverman — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 18:03:25 GMT

Maryland personal injury lawyers are closely watching a bill in this season of the Maryland General Assembly which will impose criminal liability on adults providing alcohol to minors. Intended to curb drunk driving, the expected new law will arm personal injury lawyers with a new tool to seek damages for victims of drunk drivers.

The proposed bill will change from a civil violations to a criminal misdemeanor any adult who gives alcohol to a minor. The only exceptions are parents, siblings and religious services. It is expected that the criminalization of the conduct will result in more thorough police investigations when minors are involved in drunk driving. Lawyers expect the police will also focus on the source of the alcohol, particularly when an accident or injury is involved. Adults who supply alcohol to minors my increasingly find themselves as defendants in lawsuits by victims of accidents caused by drunk minors. This is likely part of the legislatures motives to criminalize the now civil offense.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Steve Silverman

Civil Invasion of Privacy-A Tort Under Maryland Law

Steve Silverman — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 14:41:43 GMT

Whether it involve a landlord with a peephole, unauthorized movies or pictures, or compromising pictures posted on the Internet, the tort of invasion of privacy is the best means to recover in civil court in the state of Maryland.

The tort of invasion of privacy offers potential plaintiffs hope of recovering damages for mental suffering, shame or humiliation for the unwarranted appropriation or exploitation of one's personality, publicizing one's private activities with which the general public has no legitimate concern, or wrongful intrusion into one's private affairs.

If defendant is found liable for intrusion, and no defense or privilege is asserted, the plaintiff may be able to recover damages or obtain other relief. Unlike the tort of defamation, in which damages are awarded to compensate the plaintiff for the harm to his or her reputation, in an invasion of privacy suit, it is the harm to the plaintiff's dignity that is evaluated. Thus, to bring a successful invasion of privacy suit, it is not necessary that a defamatory remark be ''published,'' that is, made known to a person other than the plaintiff and the defendant. The plaintiff is the only one that is required to be aware of the intrusion, although the court must later also be convinced that he or she suffered mental distress.
A variety of remedies are available to an intrusion victim: general damages, special damages, compensatory damages, punitive damages, and injunctive relief.

General damages are of the type that generally flow from the intrusion-invasion of privacy tort, i.e., those that the law itself implies or presumes to have accrued from the wrong complained of and that are the immediate, direct and proximate result of the tort. General damages accrue as a necessary result of the injury, or they are the damages that did in fact result from the wrong, directly and proximately.

For instance, in Dietemann v. Time, Inc., the plaintiff was awarded $ 1000 in general damages for injury to the plaintiff's ''feelings and peace of mind'' after he had been deceived by reporters, who later wrote a critical article about him in ''Life'' magazine. In a New Hampshire action, a former wife, sought damages for the mental anguish, shock, anger, and sense of violation and deception she experienced when she discovered that her former husband had invaded her privacy by recording telephone conversations without her knowledge or permission. The former husband had recorded conversations between his former wife and the couple's daughter and the couple themselves. The recordings were in violation of New Hampshire's wiretapping and eavesdropping statute. The wife gave personal testimony of mental distress that was sufficient to present the issue of damages to the jury. The plaintiff's mental anguish affected her work, appetite, ability to sleep and emotional stability. The plaintiff's mother corroborated her daughter's testimony, stating that her daughter's sleep and eating patterns were disrupted for an extended period of time as a result of the emotional distress she experienced when she discovered the illegal recordings. The court felt that even though damages in invasion of privacy actions are necessarily subjective in nature, they are recoverable without demonstrating actual physical injury and without establishing causation by expert testimony.

Special damages are those ''which are the actual, but not the necessary, result of the injury complained of, and which in fact follow it as a natural and proximate consequence in the particular case, that is, by reason of special circumstances or conditions.'' Special damages are required to be specially pleaded and proved.

Compensatory damages are ''such as will compensate the injured party for the injury sustained and nothing more; such as will simply make good or replace the loss caused by the wrong or injury. [They are] [d]amages awarded to a person as compensation, indemnity or restitution for harm sustained by him.'' Compensatory damages consist of both general and special damages. An example of compensatory damages being awarded to an intrusion victim can be found in Birnbaum v. United States. The plaintiffs' letters to and from the Soviet Union were opened and copied by the United States Central Intelligence Agency. The district court awarded compensatory damages of $ 1000 to each plaintiff individually and ordered the government to send letters of apology to the plaintiffs. On appeal, the compensatory damages were affirmed, but the part of the judgment requiring that the letters of apology be sent was reversed.

Punitive or exemplary damages are awarded to a plaintiff, over and above compensatory damages, when the wrong done to him or her is aggravated by circumstances of violence, oppression, malice, fraud or wanton and wicked conduct on the defendant's part. Punitive damages are intended to soothe the plaintiff's mental anguish, shame, and/or degradation. Punitive damages are intended to punish the defendant, and, as such, are sometimes referred to as ''vindictive'' damages.

For example, in Nader v. General Motors Corp., Ralph Nader, the consumer advocate, was awarded $ 2,000,000 in compensatory damages and $ 7,000,000 in punitive damages in an invasion of privacy action against the car manufacturer. The action stemmed from G.M.'s surveillance and harassment of Nader when G.M. learned that Nader had written ''Unsafe At Any Speed,'' a book extremely critical of the car industry.

In Black v. United States, the government was held liable for $ 903,232 in damages arising out of approximately ten weeks of electronic surveillance of the plaintiff by F.B.I. agents. Damages were awarded for injuries, including loss of name, reputation, friends and business associates, in addition to mental pain and suffering, embarrassment and humiliation, as well as for loss of employment.

In other invasion of privacy cases, injunctive relief may be granted. An injunction is an equitable remedy, requiring the person to whom it is directed to do or refrain from doing a particular thing.

In summary, an intrusion-invasion of privacy victim has a number of remedies at his or her disposal to compensate for past damage or injury, to punish the wrongdoer, or to enjoin the wrongdoer from future intrusion.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Steve Silverman

Junk Faxes-Plaintiff's Lawyers Are Recovering Millions

Steve Silverman — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 14:11:12 GMT

We all get them. Those annoying travel offers or mortgage refinance offers that tie up your fax machine at work, or wake you up in the middle of the night at home. They are illegal and a violation of the federal law. Several lawyers are fighting back, and some have recovered millions of dollars for their clients. Once the lawyer educates the judge on the law, getting the judgment is easy. The hard part is collecting. Often these illegal "fax blaters" are fly-by-night operations that are hard to track down. We have been successful in the past in both getting the judgment and recovery.

The "Junk Fax" suit is filed under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, 47 U.S.C. §201, et seq. (hereinafter, “the Act”). When the U.S. Congress passed the Act in 1991, it found widespread outrage among Americans over the proliferation of sales and advertising via telephone calls and facsimile transmissions. At that time, over 30,000 businesses were actively telemarketing goods and services to business and residential customers, and there had been a steady increase in the number of complaints to the Congress and the Federal Communications Commission, leading to the conclusion that these unsolicited communications constituted a nuisance and an unwarranted invasion of privacy, and interfered with interstate commerce.

The proliferation of so-called “junk faxes” has continued despite the Act. Since 1991 a body of case law has evolved, interpreting the Act in the face of a variety of creative defenses. The courts have now confirmed the existence of a private cause of action, exclusive state court jurisdiction, the absence of any need for state enabling legislation, the constitutionality of the Act under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, the validity of the statutory damages established by the Act, and the availability of class actions to enforce the Act.

Over the past several years, a large industry has arisen based on the practice of fax broadcasting. The legitimate segment of this industry involves the broadcast transmission of faxes to those on membership lists, customer lists, and other compilations of persons who have given their prior express consent to the fax transmissions or are in business relationships with the sender. However, another segment of the industry is based on the broadcast transmission of fax advertisements to recipients who have not given their prior express consent and are not in any business relationships with the sender.

Due in large part to increasingly powerful software, computers, and facsimile transmission equipment, and the gathering and dissemination of lists of fax numbers via the Internet, the ability to send thousands of fax advertisements in a relatively short period of time has become attainable by an increasing number of advertising entrepreneurs. A single compact disc can hold the fax numbers of thousands of potential recipients. Current computer software enables anyone with a personal computer and a modem to send identical documents to hundreds or thousands of recipients. A search on the Internet using the search words “fax broadcast” turns up hundreds of sites offering the lists, software, services and techniques involved in fax broadcasting.

The Act entitles a person or entity to bring an action in state court to recover the greater of their actual monetary loss or $500 per violation. If the violation was willful or knowing, the court, in its discretion, may increase the award up to $1,500 per violation.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Steve Silverman

Out of State Automobile Accidents-What law Applies?

Steve Silverman — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 11:24:49 GMT

I recently represented a Maryland resident who was driving in Delaware when his car was hit head-on by by another Marylander who was driving in the opposite direction. My client suffered substantial injuries requiring multiple surgeries. Because the victim and the defendant were residents of Maryland, I was able to bring suit in Maryland even though the accident happened in Delaware.

The more important question was whether the Maryland Court would apply Delaware or Maryland negligence law. This was a critical issue for the victim because the Delaware law of comparative negligence is much more “plaintiff friendly” than Maryland’s doctrine of contributory negligence (see my previous blog on a discussion of contributory negligence v. comparative negligence” )

When deciding whether Maryland or Delaware law applies to this case, the Maryland Judge will follow the doctrine of lex loci delicti, which states that the law of the jurisdiction where the accident took place controls. Many states, including Delaware, take the position of the Restatement of Conflict of Laws § 145, which sets out the “most significant relationship test” and lays down six factors in § 6 to determine which law should apply when an accident occurs in one state between residents of a different state. In White v. King, the Maryland Court of Appeals clearly stated that Maryland law recognizes the doctrine of lex loci delicti. 223 A.2d 763 (1966).

This holding was reaffirmed in Hauch v. Connor, where the Court of Appeals reiterated that “[t]he rule of lex loci delicti is well-established in Maryland (although in Hauch itself, the Court applied Maryland law to an accident in Delaware based on public policy reasons because the Worker’s Compensation action could not have existed under Delaware law at all). When its rationale has been put into question, ‘this Court has consistently followed the rule.’” 295 Md. 188 at 124 (1983).

Thus, Maryland follows the rule of lex loci delicti. Even though both parties are residents of Maryland, the accident occurred in Delaware so Delaware law applies to this case.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Steve Silverman

Contributory Negligence in Maryland for Maryland Personal Injury Cases

Steve Silverman — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 15:48:21 GMT

The Doctrine of Contributory Negligence adversely affects many personal injury plaintiffs in the State of Maryland. Basically, if a victim is found to share in the responsibility for an accident, the victim is completely bared from recovery. This doctrine, only found in Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and Washington, D.C. frustrates many deserving injury victims and their lawyers.

In most states, recovery or compensation is based upon the Doctrine of Comparative Negligence. Comparative negligence, a much fairer standard, comes into play when it is contended that two or more parties failed to act in a reasonable standard of care. For example, suppose one person was driving too fast and hit a car that that failed to stop completely at a stop sign. In this situation-where each party has some degree of negligence in causing an accident-the responsibility to the other person(s) is reduced by the others' degree of negligence.

For example, suppose a jury decides that the driver going too fast was 10% responsible for the accident, while the driver who blew through the stop sign was 90% responsible. If the driver who was driving too fast is awarded $10,000, his recovery would be reduced to $1,000 because of his 10% contributory negligence.

If this accident case were decided in a contributary negligence jurisdiction such as Maryland, the driver who was found to have contributed to the accident by 10% would be 100% barred from any recovery. This can be unfortunate in situations where a plaintiff is severely injured or paralyzed, and can not make any recovery.

Most people do not think about this concept very often until it affects them personally. So if you are driving in Maryland, have an accident-watch out! The opposing insurance company may try to tag you with 1% of the blame to prevent compensating you a nickel. Immediately get yourself an experienced Maryland personal injury lawyer to protect you. Otherwise you may be left with mounting medical bills, ruined credit, and no where to turn.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Steve Silverman

Pain Pumps Risk Joint Injury, Chondrolysis in Patients

Courtney Mills — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 10:26:31 GMT

Drug delivery via a pain pump allows chronic pain patients to receive measured doses of pain medication through a catheter directly to the area surrounding the spinal cord or surgical site. Pain pump drug delivery utilizes a small pump surgically implanted under the skin near the abdomen to control chronic pain symptoms in patients who have already tried unsuccessfully to control pain with other types of analgesics.

The pain pump is especially designed for patients who suffer from spinal cord injury, cancer pain, joint pain, leg pain from the sciatic nerves that is uncontrolled by surgery, and other degenerative diseases that cause persistent, chronic pain. The pain pump delivers anesthetics such as lidocaine in high volumes to the surgical site to control pain. The pump includes a reservoir of medication and is about the size of a hockey puck.

Many patients using the pain pump who have had surgery to shoulder joints suffer from an extremely painful condition known as chondrolysis. Chondrolysis is characterized by a disintegration of the cartilage around the joint area. Patients who receive high doses of lidocaine directly into the shoulder joint usually experience problems with the cartilage surrounding the joint area. The cartilage surrounding the joint disintegrates in many pain pump patients receiving drug delivery to the joints, resulting in an extremely painful condition. Patients should exercise caution and weigh the risks and benefits when undertaking pain pump therapy.

For more information on this subject, please refer to the section on Drugs, Medical Devices and Implants.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Courtney Mills

Weis Markets Recalls Weis Baker's Basket 18 Ct Fruit Miniatures and 2 lb Platters of Mini-Fruit Diamonds

Jenny Albano — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 16:00:31 GMT

Weis Markets, in conjunction with the CPSC, is recalling Weis Baker's Basket 18 Ct Fruit Miniatures and 2 lb Platters of Mini-Fruit Diamonds because of undeclared walnuts in the products. The two pound platters of Mini-Fruit Diamonds come in four varieties - Nut Diamond, Cheese Raspberry, Apricot and Mixed assortment. People who are allergic to walnuts could suffer severe allergic reactions if these products are consumed.

These products, which were sold in Weis Markets' Bakeries, have been removed from store shelves and destroyed. The 18-count Fruit miniatures come in clear plastic containers and the two pound Mini Fruit Diamonds are packaged in a platter with a clear top. The UPC and code dates are listed below.

The problem with the Weis Market's products was discovered after a customer contacted the company to complain. The recalled Fruit Miniatures and Mini-Fruit Diamonds were sold at Weis Markets including its Mr. Z's, King's and Scot's Lo-Cost units in Pennsylvania, Maryland, New York, New Jersey and West Virginia.

The sell by date of the recalled product is 1/5/08 and the UPC Codes are:
UPC 210100-00000 18 Ct Fruit Miniatures
UPC 210112-00000 2 lb Fruit Miniature Platters

For more information on this subject, please refer to our section on Defective and Dangerous Products.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Jenny Albano

Charlemagne Chocolatiers Recalls Charlemagne Dark Chocolate Organic Bars Due to Undeclared Ingredient

Jenny Albano — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 00:16:24 GMT

Charlemagne Chocolatiers of Belgium is recalling 5,000 units of its dark chocolate organic bars because the bars may contain undeclared milk protein. A consumer that eats these chocolate bars and is allergic to milk may have a severe allergic reaction that could result in adverse health risks or even death.

The chocolate bars were distributed in the U.S. in the following states: Michigan, California, New Jersey, New York and Maryland.

The following kinds of chocolate bars are being recalled:
- Charlemagne Dark with Coffee 50 gr.(1.75 oz.) (UPC= 5 425001 204038)
- Charlemagne Dark with Cinnamon 50 gr.(1.75 oz.) (UPC= 5 425001 204052)
- Charlemagne Dark with Orange 50 gr.(1.75 oz.) (UPC= 5 425001 204021)
- Charlemagne Dark with Green tea 50 gr.(1.75 oz.) (UPC= 5 425001 204045)
- Charlemagne Plain Dark with Belize Chocolate. 50 gr.(1.75 oz.) (UPC= 5 425001 204014)

The packaging on these products do not include milk protein in the list of ingredients and do not contain an allergen statement. So far no illnesses have been reported to the company from consumers in the U.S. The problem was discovered when the bars were tested for milk protein by the FDA after hearing about a recall in Canada.

For more information on this subject, please refer to our section on Defective and Dangerous Products.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Jenny Albano

Wegmans Food Market Recalls Food You Feel Good About Country Wheat Rolls

Jenny Albano — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 23:16:24 GMT

Wegmans Food Market Inc., in conjunction with the FDA, is recalling Food You Feel Good About Country Wheat Rolls because they may actually contain potato rolls ,which has a milk allergen that is not listed on the label. The recall includes 18 oz. wheat rolls with a best by date of October 10. The bread was produced on October 1 and would have been sold in stores on October 2 and October 3 in Wegmans Food Stores.

No illnesses have been reported to date. The recall of this product is of concern only to those individuals who have allergies to milk. Consumption may cause a serious or life-threatening reaction in persons with allergies to milk.

This product is only sold at Wegmans Food Markets in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia, and Maryland.

For more information on this subject, please refer to our section on Defective and Dangerous Products.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Jenny Albano