Posted on March 09, 2010 in Medical Malpractice

In the continuing saga of the unnecessary cardiac stents that Dr. Mark Midei placed in people at St. Joseph Medical Center, St. Joseph now has sent letters to another 169 patients (in addition to the 369 who originally received letters) informing them that their stents were not necessary. That means that the total number of stent letters St. Joseph has sent now stands at 538.

In an excellent article today by Scott Graham, the Managing Editor / Health Care Reporter for the Baltimore Business Journal, Mr. Graham reported that St. Joseph continues to review Dr. Midei’s stent procedures between May 2007 and 2009 and expects more letters to be issued as the reviews progress. Interestingly, St. Joseph told Mr. Graham that the hospital has determined that only Dr. Midei was unnecessary implanting stents in people and that it was not a systemic problem involving other physicians. A copy of the article can be found here. Mr. Graham has written two other articles on the subject of the stents, which can be found here:

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 Posted on March 08, 2010 in Medical Malpractice

A Montana family has settled its medical malpractice case against two nursing homes for failing to properly treat an elderly relative. The family claimed that the nursing homes were negligent in their care of the 87-year-old man, who died of a blood infection. The man fell and fractured his neck during a transfer from his wheelchair, which left him bedridden. He subsequently developed severe pressure ulcers that got worse over months and led to a case of gangrene of the leg. The family alleged that the wheelchair transfer and the treatment of the bedsores were below the standard of care. A article on the case can be found here .

As an experienced Baltimore, Maryland lawyer / attorney who specializes in medical malpractice cases, I have handled a number of medical malpractice cases involving poor nursing home care. These cases require an extensive evaluation of the medical records involved and consultation with experts in nursing care. It is always said when the most vulnerable members of our society are mistreated.

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 Posted on March 01, 2010 in Divorce

On Wednesday, February 24, 2010, Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler issued an opinion stating that Maryland courts and officials should recognize as valid same-sex marriages performed in other states. The Attorney General believes that the Maryland Courts will follow his lead, as they have recognized marriages performed legally in other states as legal here in Maryland. For example, while common law marriage is not recognized in Maryland, if a couple was married due to a common law relationship in another state Maryland has recognized that as a valid marriage. Also, the Attorney General points out that Maryland has recognized increasing rights for same-sex couples in the recent past, including the right to adopt. This Opinion puts state officials on notice that the Attorney General believes that Maryland is bound by the constitution to recognize these marriages as valid in Maryland, and state agencies should begin extending married rights to the couples. For more information on same-sex marriages view our February 5, 2010 blog.

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 Posted on February 28, 2010 in Divorce

As stated in the August 15, 2009 blog, Maryland is a hybrid state in that a party filing for an absolute divorce may elect to proceed on fault (contested) or no-fault (uncontested) based grounds. The Maryland Code, Family Law § 7-103 states that there are six fault based grounds for an absolute divorce: adultery, desertion, cruelty of treatment, insanity, incarceration and excessively vicious conduct.

Adultery, or voluntary intercourse between a spouse and an individual other than their spouse who is of the opposite sex, is a fault based ground for divorce that requires no waiting period to file. However, while you do not have to show evidence of the actual intercourse between your spouse and his or her paramour you must be able to prove both the opportunity and disposition for the adulterous intercourse to be proven.

In order to file for an absolute divorce based on desertion the desertion must continue for one year uninterrupted before filing, must have been a final and deliberate act, and there must be no reasonable hope of reconciliation. Desertion can be either actual or constructive. Actual desertion occurs when the spouse leaves the home without cause, and constructive desertion occurs when a spouse’s conduct justifies a leaving spouse to do so.

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 Posted on February 28, 2010 in Criminal Defense

Baltimore County Criminal Defense Lawyers/Attorneys deal regularly with issues of illegal search and seizure. Generally speaking the issue in many cases is not so much whether or not the defendant is factually guilty but whether or not the police violated the person’s constitutional rights in the process of investigating an/or arresting him. One of the specific issues that comes up quite often is the issue of when or if the police may conduct a strip search or the functional equivalent of a strip search of a person who is suspected of a crime or under arrest.

I’m sure it will come as no surprise to most people that when a person has been arrested for a serious felony or for any charge that causes them to be processed into the jail, that person will almost without exception be subjected to a strip search. The instances that are less clear cut are those cases in which a person is only charged with misdemeanors or traffic offenses and is released either on their personal recognizance or bailed out without ever going to the detention center, as well as cases in which the police strip search (or conduct the equivalent of a strip search) prior to an arrest taking place. I am currently representing an individual in the latter category. Briefly, here are the facts:

My client was pulled over on Interstate 95 for minor traffic offenses. The police officer claimed that he smelled marijuana and as a result determined that he had probable cause to search the vehicle. At this point he removed my client from the car and told him that he was going to search him for weapons for "officer safety". He began by simply patting my client down but ended up pulling my clients pants down and reaching inside his underwear to remove approximately 28 grams of heroin which my client had hidden next to his genitals. He was arrested and charged with possession with the intent to distribute heroin and simple possession. Fortunately for my client the police car that was used by the police officer was equipped with a dash board video camera that recorded the entire incident so we are not stuck with the police officers version of the events contained in the Statement of Probable Cause.

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 Posted on February 26, 2010 in Driving Under the Influence

I am experienced Maryland criminal defense attorney who has counseled hundreds of criminal defendants and DUI suspects charged with fleeing the seen of an accident, Whether the driver has run into a tree and ditched his car, or ran someone over and sped off, experience shows that 90% of the time the responsible driver flees the scene because he is impaired by alcohol or drugs.

It is very easy for the police to prove a vehicle was in an accident. Often there are paint, blood or hair follicles that can be matched to the object or person hit. In cases where the vehicle is not ditched, police are often able to track down enough evidence to make a case against the owner/ driver. Sometimes the investigation takes days or weeks.

In these instances, however, it is almost impossible to prove the operator of the vehicle was impaired. This is because in order to convict a person of drunk driving, the police need to establish that the person was 1) behind the wheel, 2) had alcohol or drugs in his system, and 3) was above the Maryland legal limit of .08 or otherwise impaired.

In order to prove these elements for DUI, the police need to perform field sobriety tests and offer a breath test. The problem with delaying these tests is that if positive, it is impossible for the prosecution to establish WHEN the alcohol or drugs were ingested. Hence, if the police can’t put a person behind the wheel, the prosecution will fail.

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 Posted on February 24, 2010 in Medical Malpractice

There has been a lot of publicity lately about 369 people who have received letters from St. Joseph Medical Center stating that cardiac stents placed by Dr. Mark Midei may not have been necessary. I have been told that St. Joseph has a group of five cardiology experts reviewing Dr. Midei’s cardiac stent procedures during a certain time frame, and if all five doctors agree that the study was misread and the stent was unnecessary the patient gets a letter from St. Joseph. But what about the people who had stents placed by Dr. Midei who did not receive such a letter? Could they have cases? The answer is yes.

St. Joseph’s experts are only looking at a certain time frame and it takes five doctors to agree on the misread. Therefore, if you are outside of the time frame that the St. Joseph doctors are looking at, or if only four out of the five doctors agree that you did not need the stent, you will not get a letter. Already, I have three clients who did not receive letters whose studies were misread and who, therefore, did not need stents.

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 Posted on February 23, 2010 in Medical Malpractice

So far, I have carefully selected about a three medical malpractice cases against Dr. Mark Midei and St. Joseph Medical Center. In each of these cases, the client contacted me either after getting a letter from St. Joseph Medical Center stating that he or she received an unnecessary stent or after reading articles in the newspaper about Dr. Midei and St. Joseph.

To date, there have been seven articles about this fiasco in the Baltimore Sun, consisting of the following:

1/15/10 Patients learn they might have unneeded stents.

1/22/10 Heart-stent popularity is costly in many ways.

1/23/10 Suit alleges heart implant unnecessary.

1/28/10 Lawyers see profits in stent cases.

1/29/10 Lawyers look for clients in cases of possibly unneeded stents.

2/20/10 Senators launch fraud inquiry of Md. hospital.

2/21/10 St. Joseph acts to put stent crisis behind it.

Rumor has it that St. Joseph Medical Center has a group of five leading cardiology experts reviewing all of Dr. Midei’s cardiac catheterization and stent procedures during a certain time frame, and if all five doctors agree that the study was misread and the stent was unnecessary the patient gets a letter from St. Joseph. The problem with that methodology is that it only looks at a certain time frame and it takes five doctors to agree on the misread.

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 Posted on February 21, 2010 in Medical Malpractice

A bill currently is being considered by the Maryland legislature would expand a law that protect a doctors from his apology being used against him in court in a medical malpractice case. Currently, Maryland law states that an apology or statement of regret by a doctor is inadmissible in a medical malpractice trial. That statute, which is found in Section 10-920 of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article of the Annotated Code of Maryland, encourages doctors to apologize for an error. In my opinion, it is a good law that encourages a doctor to be honest with a patient.

But a new bill has been proposed to expand the current law so that other things the doctor says along with the apology or statement of regret also would be inadmissible. This does not make sense. We shouldn’t have to exclude statements from evidence to encourage our doctors to be honest with us. Moreover, the effect of this proposed law would be to prohibit from evidence what could be the only evidence of what happened. For example, suppose a patient becomes paralyzed during back surgery and the operative report and all of the other records surrounding the procedure are silent as to what happened (this is exactly what happened in a recent case of mine). Then, suppose the doctor comes into the patient’s room after the surgery and says "I’m really sorry that you are paralyzed (currently this would be inadmissible) and I feel really bad about what happened (also currently inadmissible), but during the surgery I dropped an instrument on then spinal cord by accident because I was really tired from being out the night before with my medical school buddies at a reunion; I just wanted you to know what happened." The proposed law would make that last part of the doctor’s confession inadmissible. That is absurd.

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 Posted on February 14, 2010 in Family Law

As I have said before and I will say again, child custody relocation cases are extremely difficult, especially from the perspective of the bench when the ‘primary caregiver’ is the parent relocating. In this case, the Mother moved to another State for a new job earning approximately, what will net to be about, $20,000.00 more a year. She does not have family there (actually moved further from all of her family), she has not attempted to facilitate any access for the Father, and she disobeyed an existing order of court. On the other hand, all of Father’s family lives in Maryland, he owns a home in Maryland, Mother has a sister in Maryland, and Mother did not even attempt to find another position in the state of Maryland (and did I mention she voluntarily left her employment in Maryland, she was not unemployed).

In Maryland, in an establishment case, which this case is with the relocation twist, the Court must determine what is in the best interest of the minor child. Those factors include, but are not limited to, the fitness of the parents, the desires and agreements of the parents, the potential to maintain family relationships, the child’s preference if he or she is at a sufficient age, opportunities affecting the child, the age and health of the child, and the residence of the parents and opportunity for visitation. Montgomery County v. Sanders, 38 Md. App. 406 (1997). Relocation cases tap into additional factors, such as (1) the nature, quality, extent of involvement, and duration of the child’s relationship with the parents, siblings and other significant persons in the child’s life, (2) the age, developmental stage, needs of child, and most likely impact the relocation will have on the child’s physical, mental, and educational development, (3) the feasibility of preserving the relationship between the non-relocating parent and the child through suitable visitation arrangements; (4) whether the relocation of the child will enhance the general quality of life for both the custodial party seeking relocation and the child, including, but not limited to financial or emotional benefit or educational opportunity; (5) the reasons of each person for seeking or opposing the relocation; and (6) any other factors affecting the best interest of the child. In this particular case, among other things, what I thought was of utmost importance to point out to the Court was an additional factor, that the Mother has established a pattern of conduct attempting to thwart the relationship between the child and his Father and if she could not follow an existing Order of Court, why would she follow another Order if the Court grants her custody. In addition, when weighing stability (in my opinion we had a lot of stability factors on our side), there is a lot to be said for the stability of the child remaining in the environment and community in which they live. In the interest of the limited time we had for our closing arguments, I asked the Court to re-read Dominques v. Johnson and Braun v. Headley, in my opinion two of the leading cases on relocation, and to consider Shunk v. Walker and the impact that decision had on 9-105 of the Family Law Article . We are a little over a month out and still no decision, stay tuned for Part Three.

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