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Certainly, State Farm is a major player in the auto accident insurance market share in Maryland, getting barely nudged out of the top spot by GEICO. According, Maryland accident lawyers see plenty of State Farm cases… over and over again. State Farm is not a bad company. They have quality accident lawyers in Maryland and good adjusters. In fact, the only issue our Maryland accident lawyers differ with State Farm over typically is the value of individual accident cases. The problem is, of course, is that value is the key ingredient in Maryland accident cases.

Our Maryland car accident lawyers lift up the veil behind State Farm in Maryland and explain some important details worth knowing in attempting to achieve a settlement with State Farm in the Baltimore-Washington area. Click on the preceding link for our attorneys’ analysis of State Farm.

 

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Maryland accident lawyers will find of interest in my cross-examination of the defendant driver in a Baltimore City truck accident case tried last month in which the Plaintiff received a verdict of over $1 million. The case has since settled.

This truck driver cross-examination underscores that truck accident lawyers need to know the applicable trucking regulations inside and out. As you will see if you read the cross-examination, this red light/green light truck accident case was arguably won based on an obscure trucking regulation. If you are a Maryland accident lawyer and you think, “Gee, car, truck, it is all pretty much the same thing,” you will miss a ton of angles that could make or break your accident case.

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On Thursday, the Maryland Court of Special Appeals decided a workers’ compensation case in Montgomery County, Maryland in Montgomery County v. Willis. This case involves an interpretation of the Maryland Workers’ Compensation Act regarding when an injured worker can appeal a decision from the Workers’ Compensation Commission denying a request to have the Commission refer the case to the Insurance Fraud Division in the Maryland Insurance Administration, pursuant to Maryland Labor & Employment. Code Ann. § 9-310.2.

The case’s facts deal with an old friend of the Maryland accident lawyer: the subsequent injury. The Claimant was a police officer with the Montgomery County Police Department when she injured her knee at work on July 20, 2001. The Claimant then had another knee injury off the job. The Claimant played it straight and told her employer about both injuries. She got the idea for a workers’ compensation claim from her supervisor, and her employer did not contest the claim.

So far, so good. But five years later, the Montgomery County Self-Insured Fund who provided the workers’ comp insurance for the Montgomery County Police, claimed it was not aware of the subsequent injury and requested a hearing for a referral to the Maryland Insurance Fraud Division.

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A former Toyota lawyer is accusing the carmaker of illegally withholding evidence in hundreds of rollover death and injury cases, in a “ruthless conspiracy” to hide evidence of “its vehicles’ structural shortcomings.”

Toyota calls the accusations “inaccurate” and accuses the attorney of violating “his ethical and professional obligations.”

As to the latter charge, let’s assume the lawyer violated the lawyer-client privilege. Okay, he should be disbarred if that is true. Still, forget about blaming the messenger. What did Toyota do?

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I really find this interesting:

Progressive Insurance announced the availability of insurance protection for pets in automobiles. The announcement was colored as a promotional move to entice new customers. I just about busted a gut when I heard about it. The fact of the matter is that insurance actuary tables reveal that by percentage, autos with pets riding in them have fewer and less destructive collisions than automobiles without pets in them. George Soros doesn’t give a rat’s patootie about your pet. It’s all about his own bottom line. In fact, if those same actuary tables showed beyond a doubt that natural blondes had fewer auto collisions than the rest of us, hair color would be a determining factor in calculating your insurance premium and natural blonds would get preferred rates. It’s that simple.

What a cynical view of the insurance industry! Yet, so accurate.

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We get a lot of questions about suing someone who has passed. It is not fun to sue a dead person, but you have to do what you have to do to ensure a recovery for your client. Thankfully, you are suing the estate almost invariably in name only and there is an insurance company standing behind the lawsuit.

If the decedent had an estate, it is pretty easy: you sue the estate and serve the personal representative.

Put the Estate on Notice

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Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley signed into law on Senate Bill 277, a controversial law that I suspect will decrease the number of fatal accidents in Maryland. This new Maryland law provides for the use of speed cameras in highway work zones and within a half-mile radius of schools, which means that they can be placed on freeways in work zones or close to schools.

Maryland and Arizona are the only states with laws on the books that provide for the use of freeway speed cameras.

Is it apodictic that a disproportionate number of fatal Maryland car accidents involve pedestrians? What kind of pedestrians? With incredible frequency, our accident lawyers see two kinds of fatal pedestrian accident cases: kids and workers in a work zone. This law addresses both problems.

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We have heard some version of this story hundreds of times: client gets into an accident and hires a lawyer they either found in the yellow pages, on television, or from a “friend of a friend.” After some time passes, they realize that while their lawyer may be a nice person, the lawyer is not a seasoned accident lawyer who focuses their career on maximizing the amount of money the client recovers in an injury claim. The accident victim gets on the Internet, researches carefully who the best accident lawyers in Maryland are, and calls our law firm.

First, if you are unhappy with your accident lawyers, you can switch law firms at any time you want. Still, you need to consider whether on not you are better served staying with the lawyer you currently have. It may be that you are expecting too much and that your current accident lawyer is doing everything possible to further your case. We always suggest if you are thinking of firing your accident lawyer, but you are not sure whether you should, sit down with your current lawyer and see if they can resolve your questions to your satisfaction.

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Many of our Maryland accident lawyers’ clients were injured in a car accident while on the job. This means the plaintiff has three accident claims under Maryland law: PIP, third party liability, and workers’ compensation.

Generally, a Maryland accident lawyer wants to present the PIP claim before the workers’ compensation claim in Maryland. Other states differ on the right of subrogation of PIP insurance. But Maryland law is clear that the PIP carrier has no right of subrogation against any third-party recovery, according to Maryland Code, Insurance Article §19-507(d). In other words, if the PIP claim is made first, the injury victim does not have to pay back the PIP benefits the victim receives (most attorneys don’t charge for PIP claims). In contrast, the workers’ compensation carrier has subrogation rights (after attorneys’ fees) out of the third-party recovery for the workers’ compensation benefits that it paid to the victim under Maryland Code, Labor and Employment Article §9-902(e) and §9-902 (f).

If a Maryland accident lawyer decides—either out of laziness or just getting it wrong—to put the workers’ compensation claim first, the lawyer might be barred from making a PIP claim. Under Maryland accident law, the PIP carrier receives a setoff for workers’ compensation benefits that the accident victim has received under Maryland Code Insurance Article §19-513(e).

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The New York Times has an article on how the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration chose not to make public hundreds of pages of research and warnings about the relationship between cell phones and car accidents. Why? Higher-ups at the NHTSA claim that the motivating force was concerns about angering Congress. I’m sure this may be what the NHTSA officials were told, but the reason for the information being withheld is that the agency was sticking to its mission of gathering safety data, not lobbying states. Doesn’t this sound more like the Bush administration to you than it does Congress?

Apparently, the data showed that hands-free headsets did not eliminate car accidents, because cell phone conversation was what causes the distraction, not just the holding of the cell phone. To date, no state has banned entirely the use of cell phones while driving.

I’ve never seen data estimating how many Maryland car accidents are caused by cell phone usage. But I think the Maryland legislature should look at this study and consider what our law should be in Maryland on cell phone usage while driving a car. Cell phone use is still on the rise and Maryland accident lawyers already have enough business.

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