Maryland has one circuit courthouse for each of its 24 counties. These are for civil cases, like automobile accidents, where the plaintiff claims $15,000.01 or more. The plaintiff can file a request for a jury trial. If not, the defendant can file the request. Otherwise, the case will be heard…
Most personal injury cases in Maryland go through the Maryland District Courts. Background A judge will hear your case if it goes to trial in what is known as a bench trial. There are no jury trials in the District Courts. After a complaint is filed, the court will issue…
The final piece of the puzzle is the attorneys’ fees. Attorneys’ fees don’t have anything to do with the full value of the case, but they have more to do with your take-home–with the final net value of your settlement. There are a number of different types of attorneys’ fees…
Payment of your medical bills is an important issue in a Maryland automobile collision case. There are a few possibilities: You pay out-of-pocket You pay with health insurance, Medicare or Medical Assistance You pay with PIP (personal injury protection) You don’t pay, and the bills are still outstanding Some combination…
Personal injury protection (PIP) is insurance that comes from the car you are in when you are hurt. It is sometimes referred to as no fault, and if you have PIP coverage it will provide benefits regardless of whether you caused the accident, or the accident was caused by someone…
Your auto case value is affected by the courts and counties where you are permitted to file the lawsuit. The reason is that (1) some courts have different limits on the amount of money you can recover; and (2), in general, the decision makers (judges and juries) have attitudes toward…
We’ve discussed how the strength of your case (liability and negligence) affects your case value, and we’ve discussed how the economic damages, like medical bills and lost wages, impacts your case value. Now we’ll talk about non-economic damages. Most people think of non-economic damages as “pain and suffering.” Each state…
Probably the most important factor in determining the value of your Maryland auto accident case is the amount and type of economic damages. Economic damages are, simply put, those things which can be calculated with mathematical precision. This is different from non-economic damages (which we’ll talk about next time), which…
Two major factors in deciding the value of any automobile accident case are liability and damages. Damages, which we’ll discuss in a later post, include things like medical bills, lost wages, pain, suffering and incapacity. Liability is used (often incorrectly) by lawyers to refer to negligence. In some cases, lawyers…
One question common to all Maryland auto accident victims is “what is my case worth?” It’s a simple question with a complicated answer–so complicated, that we’re going to spend the next seven or so blog posts breaking it down for you. Here’s the outline of what we’ll cover: Liability (how…