Silver Spring Maryland Personal Injury Legal Blog

In Maryland and other states, when there is a one-vehicle accident there may nonetheless be a claim for injury or death damages arising out of the accident. That would be the case when a passenger in the vehicle was seriously injured or killed due to the driver's negligence. Although negligent drivers cannot normally collect personal injury or death damages from motor vehicle accidents involving solely their own vehicles, a claim may accrue to an innocent passenger in the vehicle.

The foregoing principle will likely hold true in connection with an accident that occurred on Feb. 19 on Appleton Road near Elkton. A 19-year-old female operator of a sedan inexplicably veered over the center line of the highway and traveled off the other side of the road where it thereafter collided violently into a tree, according to the Maryland State Police. The impact left a devastating picture of a thoroughly mangled vehicle reduced to rubble and shattered into several separate sections.

The promise of fewer wrinkles, a more distinguished nose or a flatter stomach has often attracted Maryland residents and others around the country to seek plastic surgery. Certainly, no one who seeks to make improvements to their appearance expects to encounter major complications. Unfortunately, a facility in another state has been plagued by a number of deaths and serious problems, following procedures that have led to numerous medical malpractice allegations.

Over the last six years, eight people died at a nationally advertised plastic surgery clinic, while others had severe complications arise, following their procedures. According to reports, the clinic performed as many procedures as possible every day, taking roughly half the time typically spent on each operation. With more apparent focus on quantity than quality, problems continued to mount for the clinic.

Placing a loved one in the care of a long-term nursing facility is seldom an easy decision.  Sadly, regardless of the time one invests in researching a chosen facility, the most vulnerable patients are often unable to advocate for themselves and can become victims of nursing home negligence. There are countless Maryland residents who may have concerns about their loved ones' safety.

Recently, one nursing facility was the target of an investigation after a series of deaths of residents who were dependent on ventilators. Over the past four years, it was discovered that the patients' deaths were attributed to negligence on the part of nursing staff. In the first death, which was reported in 2015, a patient's respirator was purportedly disconnected two hours ahead of the scheduled time. The patient was found without a pulse after approximately 25 minutes and died the following day. It was unclear whether the ventilator was scheduled to be turned off at a set time.

When loved ones become incapacitated, many Maryland families select a skilled facility to provide care for them. Personnel at the facilities are expected to see to patients' everyday needs, such as feeding and hygiene, as well as medical needs, like administering medication, therapy or diagnostic tests. When a facility fails to do this, the results can be devastating. A woman in another state filed a civil lawsuit for nursing home negligence against a facility, which also faced criminal charges for the same incidents.

The woman's husband had entered a facility in 2011 due to symptoms from Huntington's chorea, a neurological disease that is a combination of Lou Gehrig's disease and Parkinson's disease. When that facility closed, he was transferred to a new nursing home. However, she began seeing many signs of neglect during her frequent visits to see her husband. He indicated he was hungry and was also left in soiled clothing and linens on several occasions.