Articles Posted in Serious Accidents

In some Maryland personal injury suits, the failure to follow procedural rules can have a detrimental impact on the outcome of the case.  In a November 30, 2020 opinion, the Court of Special Appeals of Maryland considered whether it was appropriate for a trial court to sanction the plaintiffs’ failure to respond to discovery by dismissing their case.

The plaintiffs in the case were a married couple who brought suit against their neighbor, alleging that his negligence had caused the wife to suffer a serious head injury.  The injury arose when the neighbor had asked the plaintiffs to assist him in retrieving a rowboat at the bottom of a rocky embankment.  Attempting a makeshift pulley system, the neighbor tied a climbing rope to the trailer hitch of his SUV, while the husband tied the other end to the rowboat.  The neighbor then wrapped the rope around a large boulder and asked the wife to watch the rope.  As the neighbor moved the boat, the rope dislodged and struck the wife in her chest.  The force of the rope catapulted her over an adjacent retaining wall and into the rocky embankment.

The husband rushed to his wife and told the neighbor to call 911.  While waiting for emergency services, they moved the wife back home.  The husband asked the neighbor about the ambulance, and the neighbor stated he never called because he didn’t have his cell phone.  The husband then contacted emergency services, which arrived minutes later.  The wife was airlifted to a hospital and placed into a medically induced coma for six days but survived following a long recovery.

Continue Reading ›

Motorcycle and dirt bike riders can suffer life-threatening injuries when they are involved in a Maryland motor vehicle collision.  In a February 6, 2020 case, the plaintiff was seriously injured in a dirt bike accident while being pursued by a police cruiser.  He brought a negligence claim against the officer and other defendants to recover damages for personal injuries.  When the trial court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants, the plaintiff filed an appeal with the Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

The defendant in the case was a police officer working secondary employment as a security guard at an apartment complex.  He observed the plaintiff’s cousin driving a dirt bike with the plaintiff, riding as a passenger, through the apartment complex.  Believing their dirt bike matched the description of a bike that had been reported stolen, the defendant approached them.  The plaintiff’s cousin sped away from the defendant and out of the apartment complex.  The defendant pursued them in his police cruiser onto the main road.  The defendant alleged that he did not witness the accident involving the plaintiff and his cousin, but came upon it after it had happened.

A Maryland negligence claim requires four elements: a duty owed to the plaintiff, breach of that duty, causation, and injury.  The trial court had dismissed the plaintiff’s negligence claim in part due to the lack of proximate causation.  On appeal, the plaintiff argued that the officer’s conduct was the proximate cause of the accident because he had chased the dirt bike despite an obvious error that it was stolen, and because his pursuit on public roads violated police policy.

Continue Reading ›