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Big Vanilla in Pasadena and Severna Park is being sued by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on behalf of four women for the sexual harassment of all four women and the firing of three of them in retaliation for complaining, according to the Maryland Daily Record and the Baltimore Examiner.

Dawn Wooden, Joella Hopkins, Melissa Mendez, and Michelle Cabral said they had been subjected to “repeated, unwanted, sexually offensive remarks and sexual advances” by co-workers and supervisors since December 2006. The commission said the women were discriminated against by Big Vanilla based on their sex and their work environment was “sexually hostile” because of offensive comments and unwanted touching. When they complained, Big Vanilla fired them (with the apparent exception of Ms. Mendez).

The EEOC said it is seeking monetary and injunctive relief against Big Vanilla, including back wages and compensatory damages for the employees, and changes in Big Vanilla’s employment policies.

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The Maryland Daily Record had a quick blurb about a bill introduced by Maryland State Senator Nancy Jacobs, a Republican from Hartford County, exempting nursing mothers from jury duty. Senator Jacobs claims that she knows of many instances in her district where breast-feeding mothers were required to serve on juries.

Judges are quick to ignore a lot of excuses for serving on jury duty. But I don’t think I have ever been in front of a judge who I think would not excuse a breastfeeding mother.

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In the vast majority of personal injury cases, injury victims will be better off hiring a personal injury lawyer to handle their claim, particularly in serious injury cases. But many people for a variety of reasons – most of them foolish – will choose to handle their own claims. Accordingly, I have drafted a list of things that are a good idea to do or not do if you are trying to handle your own personal injury case. You can find these tips on handling your own personal injury case on our Miller & Zois website.

Why do this? Because people will handle their own claims so I think personal injury lawyers should try to arm these people with a few weapons to get the best outcome. Not only will it help them, but it will help our clients as well because awful settlements are thrown into the pool of data to determine fair value in personal injury cases.

The problem with these tips is that they are not legal advice because legal advice is narrowly tailored to the specific facts of a particular case. So in a small minority of personal injury cases, following these tips will hurt, not help your case, because of specific facts that fall outside the general rule.

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I found a new blog called ER Stories – Shocking, Hilarious, Bizarre, and Sad Tales from the ER. It is an anonymously written blog by an emergency room doctor.

I have a bit of a problem assessing the credibility of someone who refuses to identify themselves. Does the American Medical Association take a position on this? I also notice the site has a lot of prominently placed Google ads. To borrow the old Seinfeld line, “Not that there is anything wrong with it.” But it is worth noting.

Anyway, one of his leitmotifs is frivolous medical malpractice cases, as evidenced by his post called “What a Wonderful Legal System We Have.” He tells an incredible story of a patient who came in with a fractured ankle but ran out of the hospital to flee the police. After getting arrested a few days later, he gets treatment and then brought a medical malpractice claim against the hospital, which the hospital settled for $10,000.

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The Maryland Daily Record published a story today about a St. Mary’s County, Maryland man who is suing adultfriendfinder.com and three anonymous users of the site for defamation and false light invasion of privacy over the posting of sexually explicit pictures of his wife.

I hope more information comes out about this story because I have a lot of questions. First, the man claims that his reputation as a monogamous spouse has been smeared because of the inference that he is a swinger. This is nonsense on several levels. As a service to you, the loyal Maryland Lawyer Blog reader, I went to this website. There is no presumption that everyone on the site is part of a swinging couple. In fact, I think the major purpose of the site is to give couples a chance to pick up a third if you will. This might cast some unfavorable impressions of his wife, who is notably not a plaintiff, but it says very little about him and whether he has been faithful to his wife.

I would also be curious to know exactly where sexually explicit pictures of his wife of 22 years came from in the first place. Three different users apparently have these pictures. There does not appear to be any suggestion that the pictures were stolen or unlawfully obtained.

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My blog on Friday on large law firms and their lawyers poked a bit of fun at my brother-in-law in Arizona, who is a partner in a very large firm. I forwarded him the post and got no response. Today, he responded with a comment to my blog which I have converted into a post. Apparently, he had an opinion on the subject. He also proved the point of my original post by using the word “untermenchen” at one point.

His Response

This is his response:

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The Maryland Daily Record’s Blog reports that DLA Piper and Venable, the two Baltimore mega firms, have raised their associate starting salaries in Baltimore to $160,000.

I remember in 1995 when I was making $57,500 coming out of law school at a litigation defense firm in Baltimore that, at that time, was only a half notch below Piper and Venable in starting salary. Because other than being a law clerk, my next best paying job in life had been as a camp counselor making minimum wage, I thought I was a millionaire. (In a related story, I was still living at home.)

The Daily Record Blog asks if these young associates are worth 160K a year. The answer is clearly no. But three years from now, when they have quality experience and are billing out at $450 an hour while working approximately 28.7 hours a day, the answer becomes a resounding yes. It is not dissimilar to the Oakland Raiders signing JaMarcus Russell to a six-year, $68 million contract even when they did not think he would be an asset to them in the first year of his contract (they were right).

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The Maryland Lawyer section of the Daily Record yesterday ranks Maryland’s appellate judges by the number of opinions they wrote in 2007. I love data. But this is one of those things that appears interesting at first glance, particularly with the Daily Record’s glossy – okay not glossy, but color – two page, the center of the paper layout. But once you start reading, it is really not interesting at all.

But I found the total number of opinions generated by these two courts to be of some interest. The Maryland Court of Appeals published 154 opinions in 2007; the Maryland Court of Special Appeals wrote 1,245 opinions, of which 153 were reported. The courts produced a similar number of opinions the year before. I wish I had a count of how many of those opinions were personal injury cases.

One more thing I found of interest: of the 24 opinions Chief Judge Robert M. Bell wrote for the court, six involved attorney grievance opinions. I realize these cases are important because the career of a lawyer hangs in the balance. But this means 25% of Maryland’s highest judge’s opinions involve attorney grievances that are of little consequence to the citizen of Maryland. This is the highest percentage of any Maryland Court of Appeals judge. I’d rather have Chief Judge Bell writing opinions that impact the lives of more Marylanders. (After I wrote this, I realized they probably did not include dissenting opinions. I think Chief Judge Bell has more than his fair share of those.)

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The Baltimore Sun reports that the Maryland Court of Appeals suggested during oral arguments in a foreclosure case Monday that the court may change with the times and alter notification procedures for foreclosures, which have been on the rise in Maryland and around the country as many of us have taken out loans we cannot afford. At issue, in this case, is the rule that allows that a home can be sold about two weeks after notification is sent to the homeowner. As in most states, there is no requirement that the notification actually should be received by the homeowner.

In a separate but related story, the Baltimore Sun reports that Baltimore has filed suit against Wells Fargo Bank alleging that the bank violated federal housing law by specifically luring blacks into high-interest mortgages.

Interestingly, the city chose Relman & Dane, a Washington based law firm, to bring suit on Baltimore’s behalf. Now, I realize from my 10-second review of their website to provide a link that they have a great deal of experience in this area of law. Still, are there no lawyers in Baltimore, who help support the city’s tax base, that could have handled this case? Peter Holland, albeit in Annapolis, is quoted in the Maryland Daily Record about the case. He is one of the leading consumer rights advocates in the state. Did anyone ask him? I have no idea what the selection process was and I know little about this area of the law. But it would make sense to have someone from Maryland representing Baltimore in these kinds of cases.