Articles Posted in Car Accidents

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baltimore police cooperation accident casesAnybody who has seen the fantastic HBO series The Wire knows that the Baltimore Police have more than enough to do. Even with the recent drop in Baltimore’s murder rate, our police are still very busy.  The problem is not that they are offended by a subpoena.

This can cause problems for Baltimore injury lawyers who need police officers to appear in court for trials of injury cases. Because of the crushing workload these officers face, it can be difficult to contact them to serve a subpoena or to arrange for testimony.

Best Way to Get a Police Officer to Your Trial

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Uninsured/underinsured motorist cases are probably the most complicated kind of car accident cases you will see. These cases are called “hybrid” actions because they combine contract and tort law. You have the underlying tort case against the negligent driver, along with a contract cause of action against the UM carrier. You will have the normal concerns about proving liability and damages that you would have in any car accident case. In addition, you must be careful to prove the contract elements that you need to show entitlement to UM benefits.

These are things like the existence and extent of the tortfeasor’s liability coverage, the existence and amount of the UM coverage, and the plainitff’s entitlement to benefits. Obviously, you would send interrogatories to seek to establish one or more of the contractual prerequisites. But another good way to get the needed proof is to use an under-utilized but very powerful discovery device called a Request for Admission.

Request for Admissions

These are governed by Md. Rule 2-424. Basically, they are a list of facts, the existence of which the defendant is asked to either admit or deny. If admitted, the admission is considered conclusive proof of the existence of the admitted fact for the purposes of the case. They are especially good for proving the existence of simple “paper” facts like the ones you encounter in a UM case.

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In Part I, I talked about how useful a set of portable office supplies can be for staying organized at trial. But that is just a small part of the required level of organization. In this installment, I discuss another vital part of my overall organizational system- the trial box. Keep in mind that I am describing how I organize the typical 2-3 day jury trial. Longer, more complex trials travel in a larger set of boxes that are organized following the same basic outline.

I have a portable file box with wheels that all of my paper materials go in. This is a collapsible plastic box the size of a milk crate with wheels and a handle- the kind you see sales reps and business “road warriors” use. I organize it from front to back using file folders and large Redweld-style folders. Less important or less frequently used items go in the back, more important or often-used items are toward the front.

Starting at the back and moving forward, this is what it contains:

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When a driver gets sued for injuring somebody in a car accident, they don’t have to go out and spend their own money hiring a lawyer to defend the case. They call up their car insurance company and tell it that they have been sued. They send in the papers, and the insurance company provides them with a defense attorney.

Sometimes this is an “in-house” insurance defense lawyer, other times it is an outside lawyer selected and paid by the insurance company. Either way, the insurance company picks and pays for the driver’s defense attorney. So what you have is a three-sided (or “tripartite”) relationship- insurance company, defense attorney, and defendant driver.

Whether in-house or outside counsel, the defense lawyer has a paramount ethical duty to act in the best interest of his or her client- the defendant driver. This is true even though the insurance company selected the lawyer, is paying the lawyer’s fee, and controls most of the important decisions in the litigation, including whether to settle and on what terms.

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As the Internet Age progresses, personal injury litigation will continue to change. This extends to the “toolkit” that lawyers use to prove liability in car accident injury cases.  Technology creates more weapons for and against us.

What is Google Earth

Google Earth is a computer program that allows users to get a bird’s eye view of almost any place on Earth.  Google obtains its images from NASA’s Landsat 8 Satellite system taken from far above the earth’s surface. You can type in GPS coordinates or manually add a marker by clicking any spot on the map.

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It has been a very busy summer for me and there is no respite in sight. This is a good problem to have during a time when even large national law firms have been downsizing because of a lack of work.

I just finished a jury trial in Baltimore City against two defendants – the driver who struck my client and her uninsured motorist’s insurance carrier. This lady was hit by an uninsured driver. He was uninsured because he was an excluded driver on the insurance policy for the car he was using.

At first, it didn’t seem like a terrible accident. My client first noticed her back and leg pain at the scene that got progressively worse. She was taken to the emergency room by ambulance, and during her follow-up treatment she was diagnosed with two herniated discs from the accident. She was evaluated by an orthopedist who said that the two herniated discs were caused by the accident, and that her problem would be permanent. Her medical bills weren’t extreme—approximately $8,000.

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Most personal injury lawyers are well aware that “red light” auto accident cases are difficult to settle. Anytime we get an auto tort case involving an intersection with a traffic light, we know we will probably need to file suit and possibly go to trial to get fair compensation for the client. The simple reason for this is because insurance companies are more likely to dispute liability in intersection accidents. In this post we will look at the best strategies and approaches for navigating the liability battleground in red light accident cases.

Insurance Companies Often Contest Liability in Red Light Accident Cases

In most auto accident tort cases, it is obvious which driver was at-fault for the accident and their insurance company never bothers to dispute liability. Instead, insurance adjusters tend to focus on disputing the extent or validity of the plaintiffs’ injuries, or the amount of their damages. Roughly 80% of auto tort cases fall into this category where liability is undisputed.

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