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Last, week, the Maryland Appellate Court decided Patriot Construction, LLC v. VK Electrical Services, LLC. The case involved a subcontract between Patriot and VKES for electrical work on an NSA project, including an important notice, pay-when-paid provision, and additional ticket work that Patriot did not authorize in writing. So the opinion raises some intersteting issues about whether a part will be bound to a contract when it makes agreements outside of the written language of a pay-when-paid contract.

Facts of Patriot Construction, LLC v. VK Electrical Services, LLC

Patriot had a contract with the Maryland Procurement Office of the National Security Agency to provide general contractor services for a project at Fort Meade in Anne Arundel County. Patriot subcontracted VKES to perform electrical work for $495,000. The subcontract stated that no changes could be made without written approval from Patriot. The subcontract also included a “pay-when-paid provision.”   I’ll explain what a pay-when-paid provision is in a moment.

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Can you vacate a divorce and have your husband’s new marriage annulled? You almost can, as the plaintiff found out in Peete v. Peete, decided by the Maryland Appellate Court in March 2023.

Facts of Peete v. Peete

Bessie was married to a man named Author in 1971. She separated from him in 1975. In 1991, Author filed for divorce from Bessie in the Superior Court for the District of Columbia, and Bessie did not file an answer nor appear at the divorce hearing. As a result, the court granted Author a default judgment of absolute divorce. Author later married a woman appropriately named “Maryland.” The two remained married until Author died in 2007. Upon Author’s death, Maryland was appointed executor of his estate.

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In 2018, we read about an awful case where a woman went to a Rite-Aid warehouse in Hartford County and killed three people and injuring others before taking her own life. She had been diagnosed with a mental illness and used a gun she had legally purchased during the rampage, a fact that obviously drew some attention.  This is one of the lawsuits to come out of this tragedy.

Facts of Mitchell v. Rite Aid

Snochia Moseley was a temporary worker at the Rite Aid Distribution Center in Aberdeen, Maryland. Prior to September 20, 2018, she had only worked approximately eight shifts at the facility. On that fateful September morning, Moseley reportedly agitated other workers when she cut in front of them to check into work. She then left the facility for a brief period and returned with a handgun.

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Maryland’s Attorney General’s office announced that Jemina Saka, a 32-year-old from Street, Maryland (Harford County), has been indicted on charges of felony Medicaid fraud and felony theft.

Saka, who is not a licensed or certified healthcare provider, was employed by a home health agency to provide assistance to a vulnerable adult for up to 35 hours per week.  This is the last person that should be a victim, right?  An investigation conducted by the Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit revealed that from June 2021 to June 2022, Saka submitted time sheets indicating that she was providing 35 hours of home health care to the individual, despite not being in the State of Maryland at the time.

During her shifts, Saka was found to be out of state or at a location in Maryland that was not near the individual’s home, resulting in a loss of at least $4,300 to the Medicaid program. Saka was arrested in Florida and is awaiting extradition to Maryland to face prosecution in Baltimore County.

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Timberlake v. State is a case involving the delays in trial for criminal defendants due to COVID.   The appeal is based on his normally unacceptable trial delays primarily due to court closures mandated by Chief Judge Mary Ellen Barbera, who was then serving as the Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals of Maryland (now known as the Supreme Court of Maryland), as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

There is also some interesting Hicks analysis that will be interesting to any Maryland criminal defense lawyer.  The bottom line is that Judge Barbara’s order on COVID is binding and will not give criminal defendants an out.

Facts of Timberlake v. State

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This post will explain the applicable statute of limitations on the collection of debt under Maryland law. Throughout this post, we will refer to the person who borrowed money as the “debtor,” and the lender of that money will be the “creditor.” The statute of limitations is basically like a legal time limit or deadline. If the statute of limitations has expired, the creditor no longer has the legal right to enforce the debt against you in court.

The applicable statute of limitations in Maryland will depend on the type of debt involved.

Credit Card Debt: 3-Year Statute of Limitations

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This page is about what loss of service settlements are worth.

Loss of service damages, also known as loss of consortium damages, refer to compensation awarded in personal injury cases to the spouse or family member of the injured person for the loss of love, companionship, support, and services resulting from the injury. These damages are meant to compensate the non-injured spouse or family member for the adverse impact the injury has on their relationship with the injured person.

Loss of service damages can include various aspects, such as:

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Facebook yet again finds itself involved in another lawsuit. The social-networking service is being sued by people claiming that showing ads that network friends can “like,” violates a California law regarding commercial endorsements. Goodness, being big sure does generate a lot of lawsuits. Facebook’s bid to dismiss the lawsuit was rejected this week, and it was ruled that the plaintiffs may pursue claims that the company’s sponsored ads violate state law and are fraudulent.

The court found that “plaintiffs have articulated a coherent theory of how they were economically injured by the misappropriation of their names, photographs, and likeness.” According to the plaintiffs, a sponsored story is a paid ad consisting of another friend’s name and profile picture and claiming the person likes the advertiser, and they further feel that it’s unauthorized use of their names and likenesses and they feel they deserve compensation. Raise your hand if you think this sounds ridiculous.

Facebook’s argument is that this case should be dismissed by the court before it is dismissed by a jury because Facebook is immune under the law’s “newsworthiness” exemption, which doesn’t require consent, and that the plaintiffs are public figures to their friends, and expressions of consumer opinion are generally newsworthy. What are they complaining about? As Facebook’s Chief Executive Officer puts it, “Nothing influences people more than a recommendation of a friend” and a “trusted referral is the Holy Grail of advertising.” The “liked” ads are doing nothing but benefit the plaintiffs, but yet they are asking for more money for the unauthorized use of their names. Plaintiffs’ lawyers have an undeserved reputation for a willingness to sue their parents for a buck. This article lends credence to it.

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Chief Judge Nancy J. Rosenstengel, who is the judge in the Paraquat MDL class action lawsuit,  announced that the first Paraquat bellwether trial will start on November 15, 2022.

Is There a Paraquat MDL Class Action?

Paraquat-1-410x1024There is a Paraquat MDL class action.  This means that federal Paraquat lawsuits are consolidated into an MDL on June 8, 2021. The plaintiffs sued primarily Chevron and Syngenta. Their Paraquat lawyers alleged failure to warn and defective design. The plaintiffs claimed their exposure to paraquat caused them to develop Parkinson’s disease.

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Our firm handles a large number of shoulder injury lawsuits.  This post looks at average workers’ comp payout for shoulder injuries in Maryland such as a torn labrum or torn rotator cuff. We will look at some of the most common types of workplace shoulder injuries and examine how the typical course of treatment for these injuries can impact their workers’ comp value in Maryland.

Workplace Shoulder Injuries

The shoulder is a vitally important part of the body with a lot of moving parts. The shoulder joint is where the large ball at the top of the upper arm bone (humerus) connects into the shoulder socket (glenoid). The labrum is a cartilage disc that lines the shoulder socket and functions as a stabilizer to restrict the movement of the humerus ball in the socket. The rotator cuff is a group of tendons and muscles that closely encase the shoulder socket basically hold everything in place.

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