Anne Arundel County Personal Injury Trial
I spent this morning in the District Court of Maryland for Anne Arundel County trying a personal injury case where my client was injured in a car accident.
This was a contested liability case, with somewhat interesting facts. The defendant crossed a median strip, two lanes of travel, a front yard and a curb before crashing into my client's car where she was stopped at a stop sign on an intersecting street. His defense lawyer from Progressive Insurance argued the accident was not the defendant's fault because he had recently begun taking the medication Lyrica, which caused him to "black out" and lose control of his car.
For some reason, he had not had this reaction the first three days he took the medication. He also went out driving alone despite being aware that the patient information sheet for the drug states "[d]o not drive a car, work with machines, or do other dangerous activities until you know how Lyrica affects how alert you are." There was no medical documentation that the medication affected the defendant's driving.
My client suffered a concussion, a neck strain and a shoulder injury. She was treated by her primary care doctor and the orthopedist he referred her to. The court's verdict was $15,000.00, including my client's $6,000.00 in medical bills and $1,200.00 in lost wages. Progressive Insurance's last settlement offer was $11,500.00.
This was a good result, and an interesting case to try.
