MAJ is putting on an auto negligence seminar called “Maximizing Auto Negligence Damages at
Mediation, Arbitration and District Court Trials” on April 29th in Columbia.
Moderators:
Bad News: Your Ex-Girlfriend Passed the Bar Exam
We get a lot of traffic on this blog for law students looking to read about their bar results. When the Maryland bar exam results were coming out on Friday, we just got tons of traffic. The traffic has died off naturally but continues strong. Who is it? Surely, it is not people looking to see if they themselves passed the exam. I suspect it is curious ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends.
Listen, your ex-girlfriend passed the exam. You should have never dumped her. She is going places. Now, I’m not saying she has a job or anything; it is a tough economy. Still. You made a mistake.
Sex with Clients
New Hampshire provides the latest in reminders that this is not a good idea.
New Maryland Power of Attorney Law
The Washington Post has a good article from a lawyer at Joseph, Greenwald & Laake on the Limited Power of Attorney Act, a new Maryland law that creates new hoops before power of attorney can be transferred.
Anonymous Discipline for Sex with Client’s Wife
The South Carolina Supreme Court anonymously admonished a lawyer who had sex with the wife of his client with whom he had three open cases.
Our law firm’s general policy on these blogs is not to name names when lawyers screw up (or doctors or anyone else really for that matter). If you did something stupid, you did something stupid, but we don’t want to be the landing place to rub that in your face on Google. But, I can assure you, the Court of Appeals of Maryland does not share this view. So if a Maryland lawyer sleeps with a client’s spouse, you can expect the court to name names and to give a steeper punishment than a mere admonishment.
New Workers’ Comp Opinion
There is a new 6-1 opinion by the Maryland Court of Appeals on a workers’ comp case in Montgomery County that was filed by an injured police officer.
You can find the opinion here.
Fighting HOA Lawsuits
One thing to point out before I even begin this post: our law firm does not handle collection cases involving HOAs (or any other kinds of collection cases – just serious personal injury claim). The purpose of the Maryland Lawyer Blog is to allow me to muse on topics outside of Maryland personal injury cases. So I feel compelled to put in this caveat so that we get calls on a collections issue. (Honestly, I don’t know anyone who defends HOA collection cases.)
Anyway, with that unnecessarily long prelude, a Maryland homeowners’ association in Prince George’s County is suing P.G. County Executive Jack Johnson for failure to pay his homeowner’s association dues. In an article I read on this case a few minutes ago, his lawyer defending the case is quoted as saying: “It’s a racket. There is no oversight or regulation.”
Exactly. It is absolutely ridiculous how these HOAs run amok, going after essentially their own clients. I fully support requiring people to pay their bills and charging them a penalty in the process for not paying their debt. I recently handled one of these types of cases for an employee who made an honest mistake, thinking she had prepaid for the year. It is absolute torture dealing with these HOAs that have the agreements with homeowners so rigged that they can extort ridiculous fees that are so out-of-line with the crime of missing a few payments. I also think many deliberately avoid advising the homeowner of the debt so that the penalties accumulate.
Court of Appeal of Maryland on Contract Interpretation
The Maryland Court of Appeals agrees with the CSA, reversing a Calvert Court trial court’s finding on no ambiguity in a waivers (yes, with an “s”) of subrogation clause in a form contract governing the construction of a restaurant.
You can find the opinion here.
Smith v. State
When a Court of Appeals of Maryland opinion starts off with, “Reminiscent of a scene from a Cheech & Chong movie…”, you know the opinion will be interesting. Particularly when the dissent responds by quoting Mr. Mackey from South Park.
You can find the full Smith v. State opinion here.
DWI/DUI Laws in Maryland
Maryland needs tougher DWI/DUI laws if we will reduce the number of drunk driving accidents. Two things come to mind.
First, tougher laws. The Drunk Driving Elimination Act rejected by the Maryland legislature this Spring would have been huge. The bill would have required all DUI offenders to use an ignition interlock. The bill lost after heavy pressure from the Alcohol Beverage Institute. Honestly, I cannot figure out why they would not line up against drivers who do not use alcohol responsibly – DWIs and the number of dead people that result are not exactly a PR boon for the sellers of alcohol. I’m sure there is self-serving wisdom to it. Or something. But I can’t figure it out.
Another law would have removed repeat DWI offenders’ right to refuse a breathalyzer. Personally, I think those repeat offenders should absolutely be able to refuse a breathalyzer test. But, ah, you lose your license for 5 years if you do.