Articles Tagged with “district court”

We just finished a three day trial in the Baltimore City Circuit Court. It was a simple enough case in the beginning–we represented two clients who were injured when they were t-boned on Christmas day as they drove down to Our Daily Bread to help feed the homeless. Liability was disputed (meaning that the other driver’s insurance company believed our driver was at fault). Our clients had reasonable enough medical treatment, so we filed in the District Court for $30,000.00.

Unfortunately, the other side had other ideas. They immediately filed a cross-claim and moved us into the Circuit Court, something that the defense has a right to do when you file a case for over $15,000. Truth be told, our case probably should have been filed for less than $15,000. Our total medical bills were about $8,000 spread over two clients, and there wasn’t any significant permanency.

So, we slugged it out in Circuit Court. What would have been a one to two-hour trial in District Court became a three day trial in Circuit Court. It takes longer because we had to pick a jury, experts had to testify live (in District Court it is usually done by simply submitting the medical records and bills), and, of course, the jury needs to take a break from time-to-time.