Sidewalk Slip and Fall

In order to hold the owner of a property adjacent to a sidewalk liable for injuries caused by deviations in the elevation of the sidewalk slabs it is necessary to prove that the deviation is more than de minimus. Uniformly states throughout the United States who have addressed this issue through the litigation process have determined that the deviation, to be actionable, at a minimum, must exceed in some instances 1/2 inch and in other instances 3/4 of an inch. It is anticipated that the threshold requirements are the byproduct of expected variations that occur naturally during the construction process and are naturally expected to occur with the erosion of time. If you, your family member or friend has suffered a slip and fall injury as a result of a sidewalk deviation it is important first and foremost to secure photographs of the dangerous condition and to do so in the company of the measurement device to determine the actual configuration and size of the deviation. If you have questions regarding slip and fall injuries in Maryland please feel free to call my office at 1-888-760-7339

Accident Lawyer in Maryland Boulivard Rule

In Maryland personal injury cases the Boulevard Rule referrers to those circumstances where one driver deprives the other of the, favored drivers, right of way. The purpose of the rule is to expedite the flow of traffic by allowing the favored driver to pass without slowing for the un favored driver. The rule applies until the un favored driver becomes part of the flow of traffic. If the un favored driver is found to have violated the rule he/she is found to be negligent as a matter of law. The rule however, does not apply if the favored driver is operating his vehicle unlawfully. If you have any questions regarding Maryland personal injury accidents, please feel free to call my office we will discuss your case over the phone at no cost to you. 1-888-760-7339.

Maryland Personal Injury Lawyer

As a Maryland personal injury lawyer I am called upon to evaluate the personal injury cases every day. Each analysis starts at the same point, initially, as we investigate the liability. Who is at fault? Generally liability is imposed in automobile accident cases when the driver of the other vehicle drives in a careless manner and causes injury to the plaintiff. To maintain proof of liability the plaintiff must prove a duty owed to the plaintiff; a breach of that duty by the defendant; a causal connection between the breach and the injury as well as damages. If you been involved in a motor vehicle accident please feel free to call me as I am happy to discuss the case with you and will do so at no cost to you. 1-888-760-7339

Owner Liability Maryland Personal Injury Lawyer

There are circumstances where the owner of a automobile allows someone else to use that automobile when the owner is not present. The question of the owner's liability arises in the event the driver is in an accident. In Maryland personal injury law there are two presumptions that favor the plaintiff, in some positive ways, in establishing not owner liability but also insurance carrier coverage.

One is the presumption of agency and the other is the presumption that a non-owner operator of a motor vehicle operated with the permission of the owner. see 343 Md 320 (1995). . It is important to know the distinction between agency permissive use. The owner of the vehicle is subject to liability if the driver was acting as his agent when the accident occurred. If the driver of the vehicle was simply using the vehicle with the permission of the owner but was not doing anything for the owner at the time of the accident, then there is no liability to the owner. Specifically, there is no liability for permissive use. As such when it comes to issues of proof at trial in oder to make the owner liable you must establish evidence of the purpose of the use by the driver. To hold the owner liable that use must establish agency between owner and driver. One other issue of significant importance is the effect of permissive use on insurance coverage. If you can establish that the driver was negligent and had permission of the owner to use the vehicle you can still collect against the owner's insurance policy even if there is no agency between driver and owner.

If you have been involved in an automobile accident please feel free to give me a call at 1-888-760-7339. I am happy to discuss your case with you over the phone at no cost to you

Slip and Fall Maryland Personal Injury Lawyer

It is that time of the year again. When snow and ice are the reason for a person to slip and fall and be injured there is a potential for liability to the owner of the property. Where a injured party can show that a dangerous condition has been created by the owner such as when an owner has permitted water or ice to accumulate in a manner not apparent to the injured person and the injured person is forced to encounter the condition the owner may be liable. Additionally even if the owner of the property undertakes the effort to remove, but fails to correct or creates an artificial condition, the owner may be liable. In order for a property owner to be liable, the property owner must have had actual or constructive notice of the unsafe condition in sufficient time prior to the injury to have it corrected or to have warned the party that was injured. There are countless examples where persons have fallen on ice in parking lots of shopping centers where the owner has been held liable. Maryland courts have stated when the public is led to believe that the premises have been offered for this entry, the law is clear that the occupation assumes the duty of reasonable care. The court has further found that a land owner may be liable when it allows the snow removal service to pile snow at one end of a parking lot while the parking lot drains at the opposite end. In such an example the court has found that the owner knew that the water from the melted snow would flow across the parking lot to the drain and on cool evenings the water would freeze. This is a perfect example of when an owner has created the dangerous condition. If you a family member or friend has been injured in a slip and fall accident please feel free to call my office 1-888-760-7339.

Maryland Products Liability Lawyer

In a typical product liability suit one who designs, manufacturers or sells any product in a defective condition unreasonably dangerous to the user or consumer is subject to liability for physical harm caused to the user or consumer. The liability claim can be grounded in strict liability and also negligence. An issue sometimes arises in situations where the defective condition causes injury not to the user or consumer rather to a bystander. In the case of Valk Mfg. Co. v. Rangaswamy 74 Md. App. 304 (1987) the Court of Special Appeals addressed strict liability asserted by a bystander, plaintiff. In this case the plaintiff was killed in a car accident. The plaintiff's counsel argued his client's death could have been avoided had the arms of a snow bucket assembled to the front of a truck been removed prior to the impact. Testimony indicated the assembly was not easily removable as design. As such, the workers who had completed all of their snow removing responsibilities failed to remove the fixture and subsequently crashed into the plaintiffs vehicle. Unfortunately the fixtures projecting forward from the front of the vehicle pierced through the plaintiffs passenger side window making contact with this person and causing his death. The plaintiffs successfully argued that the projecting arms enhanced the injury and could have been removed with little effort had the assembly been properly designed. In fact the plaintiff produced an expert to testify that the fix to the design was as simple as a quick disconnect hose. The importance to the plaintiff's case in proceeding on strict liability was the elimination of the defendants claim to contributory negligence. You see in a strict liability claim the only defense a defendant can raise is assumption of risk.

Slip and Fall Lawyer

The owner of a property can be held liable to pay for your injury. In Maryland the owner's liability depends on what kind of property he has (business or residential) and why you were there in the first place (business reasons, social reasons or trespasser). For example, if the property is a business or the property is some one's home. In each case the owner has a different duty to you the visitor. If you are invited there or you are a trespasser the owner has a different duty to you. Most times premises liability is difficult to prove. Not impossible but difficult. I personally have had very good success with the premises liability claims. My largest recovery was against a hotel in Ocean City where my client slipped on ice. It was late on New Years eve the hotel had left the outdoor hot tub open and available. My client a wonderful women in her early 50's had gone with friends to the hotel. After dinner they looked outside and saw the hit tub was still open. They changed cloths and as my client exited onto the patio approaching the tub, down she went. Our theory of liability focused on the hotel's knowledge that water turned to ice in the cold. Hard to dispute that truth. And oh yeah people in hot tubs get wet. And when wet people walk from the hot tub to the door to enter the hotel they drip water. The long and short of it, don't leave the hot tub open in the freezing cold. If you do then at least warn people that is might be slippery between the patio door and the hot tub. That seems to make sense since the hotel owners have been there for many winters and knew or should have known of the danger they created and this was my client's first time ever to this hotel. You see the basis of this type of liability involving a business and a business invitee is the knowledge the owner has of the danger and the opportunity they had to correct it or warn. One of the first questions to ask a client on a slip and fall is where did you fall and secondly what made you fall. Where tells you the duty owed by the owner to your client. What made you fall is critical to success. As a lawyer you must establish the owner knew of the danger. This knowledge can be established if you can prove the danger was there for a long time or the owner created the danger. I had a slip and fall at a gas station which I won. The client slipped on oil. The owner argued the oil could have been left by the car immediately before my client arrived. In which case how could they know there was a danger in time to fix or warn. I was able to prove by eyes witnesses that the oil spill had tire marks thru it and foot prints in it. The foot prints lead directly to the glass windowed pay booth. Had the attendant been looking he would have seen the oily foot prints and could have taken corrective action to make the area safe or warned my client of the danger. It is important to note the owner of a property is not an insurer of the safety of the visitors. Giant Food v Mitchell 640 A 2d 1134. As a plaintiff you need to prove the business owner had knowledge and an opportunity to clean or warn and you the plaintiff had no reason to know or expect there was a danger there. Three ways to prove knowledge to the owner: 1. owner created the danger (Ocean City Hotel above); 2. an admission by the owner or an employee that they knew (extremely rare); and 3. constructive knowledge of the danger (the oily gas station above). Do appreciate the owner must have had an opportunity to clean or warn. So proving how long the danger existed is critical.
If you or your family member has been injured in a slip and fall, please feel free to call me. I am happy to discuss the case with you over the phone at no cost to you.

Medical Malpractice In Maryland Areas Of Liability

The areas of liability in a Maryland medical malpractice case fall generally into four categories. Plaintiff's will often find liability in general medical care, surgical errors, radiological errors and pathological areas. Once liability is determined the theories of liability generally fall into the following list.
1. Failure of proper treatment
2. Failure to tell the patient of test results
3. Lack of informed consent
4. Failure to refer a patient to a specialist.
5. Failure to preform surgery properly, including the failure to use proper tools and equipment.

Vicarious Personal Injury Liability in a Maryland

Maryland law says the general rule is "every automobile driver must exercise toward every other driver that duty of care which a person of ordinary prudence would exercise under similar circumstances". Baltimore Transit Co., v Prinz 215 Md 398 (1958). Makes sense if we intend to keep a sound order to society. Then everyone should act reasonably. If you act in a careless manner and you hurt someone then you are liable for the damages you have caused. So are there situations where someone else’s careless behavior makes you liable? Well in Maryland personal injury law the answer is yes. Negligent entrustment and respondeat superior cases provide examples. Negligent entrustment occurs when the owner knows or should know that the person he is entrusting his vehicle to is likely to use the vehicle in a manner involving risk of harm to others. For example lending your car to a person you know is intoxicated. Then the owner may be held liable Macky v Dorsey 104 Md. App. 250 (1995). Other wise the mere ownership of a vehicle does not impute liability Toscano v Spriggs 343 Md 320 (1996). And as far as respondeat superior is concerned this is when an employer is held liable for the careless acts of their employees provided the act was committed by their employee while acting in the scope of their employment. Oaks v Connors 339 Md 24 (1995).