Posted on October 12, 2012 in Medical Malpractice

Johns Hopkins Hospital researchers recently uncovered a startling figure regarding hospital medical malpractice: 40,500 intensive Care Unit (ICU) patients die each year as a result of misdiagnosis, as opposed to life threatening conditions that cannot be treated.

The study, released September 26, 2012, found that patients in the ICU are fifty percent more likely to be misdiagnosed than patients in other parts of a hospital. Further, according to the study, the most common misdiagnosis involves the vascular system, often resulting in heart attack or stroke.

This is an important study because it shows that there is malpractice at many of Maryland’s hospitals. It also shows that even some of the best hospitals in the state, such as Johns Hopkins Hospital or the University of Maryland Medical Center, are still striving to improve quality of care and reduce the incidence of medical malpractice and wrongful death

We handle cases like these all of the time in my practice.

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 Posted on October 03, 2012 in Tax Controversy Litigation

In this economy, many small businesses continue to struggle just to stay afloat and, out of desperation, find means of shuffling business funds around to pay immediately due bills and put off paying others. Some business owners have used employment tax withholding to use the government as a bank to ‘borrow the money for a short while’ during financially difficult times with good intentions to pay it back later. Others have been prosecuted for collecting employment taxes from their employees and willfully failing to pay them to the IRS. Former IRS Commissioner Mark W. Everson has stated that the "failure to pay employment taxes is stealing from the employees of the business."

The IRS vigorously audits and investigates businesses for employment tax related issues. During the 2011 Fiscal Year, the IRS recommended 110 criminal employment tax investigations for prosecution. Of those, 85 were criminally charged by indictment or information, and 79 of the 85 were sentenced, resulting in an 81% incarceration rate, with an average 24-month sentence per case. These statistics are consistent with prior years’ investigations.

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 Posted on September 24, 2012 in Criminal Defense

Some of the more difficult cases that confront Aggressive Baltimore Criminal Attorneys are charges involving the possession of illegal firearms or possession of firearms by people who are prohibited to possess them due to a prior criminal conviction. Prosecutors in Baltimore City in particular are instructed to prosecute these cases under a zero tolerance policy and to seek incarceration in every cases.

Last week I successfully defended a man charged in a 10 count charging document of various charges alleging illegal possession and use of firearms. The charges included illegal possession of a short barrel shotgun, illegally discharging a firearm within the city limits, handgun on person, reckless endangerment and other related offenses. This case is a good example of how aggressively the State’s Attorney’s Office is prosecuting firearms cases, even in a situation like this one where the evidence was quite weak and the defendant had no prior criminal record. Here are the facts:

In March of this year, police responded to an area in Baltimore City for a call of "shots fired". Several people had called 911 and stated that 4 men in a car had fired 10 or 12 shots and then left the area. One of the callers provided the license plate number of that vehicle. Upon arrival the police were unable to locate the vehicle but did recover about a dozen spent 40 caliber shell casings on the ground. Using this information the police conducted records checks and determined that the registered owner of that vehicle, my client, in fact legally owned several weapons. These weapons were properly registered and included several 40 caliber handguns.

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 Posted on September 17, 2012 in Criminal Defense

I have blogged my times about the need to hire and Experienced and Aggressive Criminal Attorney if charged with a criminal offense in Maryland. I usually begin these blogs by positing the question, "Did you hire the right lawyer". The reason for this is that so many people do not inquire into the experience and qualifications of an attorney before hiring him or her. Sometimes the lack of qualifications is a basic as the lawyer is simply not a criminal attorney but instead is a divorce lawyer or a personal injury lawyer. Sometimes it is lack of experience in a particular type of case or in the jurisdiction in which the defendant is charged.

Hiring the wrong lawyer is obviously a mistake regardless of the type of case at issue, but in a criminal case, the mistake can cause lifelong negative consequences. Unfortunately I witness this happening in court virtually everyday. I recently resolved an assault case that is a good example of this. Here are the facts:

My client attends college here in Maryland. He was involved in a relationship with a girl who was also a student at the institution. He believed that they were in an exclusive dating relationship. She apparently did not. One evening after being unable to get in touch with the young woman, my client went unannounced to her residence. Some other students let him into the secured building and he walked into her unlocked room. There he found her embracing another boy and not surprisingly, a fight ensued.

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 Posted on September 13, 2012 in Tax Controversy Litigation

As tax defense attorneys and former IRS prosecutors, we are very experienced in resolving Maryland and federal tax problems. One of the common issues we encounter involve the failure to pay Maryland sales and use tax.

I. Applicable Statutes and Case-Law
Section 11-102(a) of the Tax-General Article, Annotated Code of Maryland, imposes a sales and use tax on a retail sale in Maryland, or a use of tangible personal property or a taxable service in Maryland, unless otherwise provided. See MD. CODE ANN., TAX-GEN. § 11-102(a)(1)-(2). Section 11-601 of the Tax-General Article, Annotated Code of Maryland, provides for the payment of sale and use tax to the Comptroller of Maryland by buyers or vendors. See MD. CODE ANN., TAX-GEN., § 11-601(b)-(c) (West 2010).

If a vendor that is liable for the payment of sales and use tax, including interest and penalties, is a limited liability company (hereinafter, "LLC"), then personal liability for the same extends to all members of the LLC if there is no operating agreement, or to those individual who manage the business and affairs of the LLC if there is an operating agreement. Id. at § 11-601(d)(2). Under Tax-Gen. § 11-601(e), a member of an LLC is not considered to be managing the business and affairs of the company solely by doing one or more of the following: (a) consulting with or advising the individuals who manage the business and affairs of the company; (b) directing the management of the company in the same manner as a director of a corporation directs the management of a corporation; or (c) voting on any matter required to be voted on by the members of the company. See id. at § 11-601(e).

Pursuant to § 13-805(a), any "[u]npaid tax, interest, and penalties constitute a lien, in favor of the State, extending to all property and rights to property belonging to: . . . the person required to pay the tax . . . ." Id. at § 13-805(a). Under § 13-807(a), "[a] tax collector may file a notice of tax lien with the clerk of the circuit court for the county where the property that is subject to the lien is located." Id. at § 13-807(a). Further, under § 13-810(a), "[i]f a tax lien is not satisfied or released on or before the 15th day after the notice of the lien is filed, recorded, and indexed under § 13-807 of [the Tax-General Article], a qualified attorney . . . of the Comptroller . . . may bring an action in a court of the State to enforce the lien." Id. at § 13-810(a). If the claim for the lien is established by the State, "the court may order: (1) a sale of the property or rights to property; and (2) a distribution of any proceeds of any proceeds of sale in accordance with the interest of the parties and the State." Id. at § 13-810(d).

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 Posted on September 13, 2012 in Federal Crimes & White Collar Crimes

As a lawyer who has successfully defended many types of insider trading allegations by both the SEC and CFTC, I am often asked to explain what type of insider trading is prohibited by the CFTC within the commodities and futures markets?

I. General Overview and Background of CFTC
Generally, regulation of the U.S. financial markets is divided between the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), with authority over securities, and the Commodity and Futures Trading Commission ("CFTC"), with authority over futures/derivatives. See Gary Rubin, CFTC Regulation 1.59 Fails to Adequately Regulate Insider Trading, Note, 53 N.Y.L. SCH. L. REV. 599, 606 (2008-09). The Commodity Exchange Act ("CEA") of 1936 was the first major congressional initiative aimed at regulating derivatives. See Commodity Exchange Act of 1936, ch. 545, 49 Stat. 1491 (1936) (codified as amended at 7 U.S.C. § 1 (2006)); see also id. at 604. Generally, the CEA expanded upon prior acts by increasing the Secretary of Agriculture’s authority and making it "unlawful to engage in commodity brokering without first registering with the secretary." Rubin, supra, 53 N.Y.L. SCH. L. REV. at 605 (citing CEA § 5, 49 Stat. at 1492-97).

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 Posted on September 13, 2012 in Business Counseling, Litigation & Transactions

Generally speaking, a Maryland corporation provides protection to individuals from personal liability associated with debts of the corporate entity. When a plaintiff or creditor is able to go after an owner’s personal assets, it is commonly called "piercing the corporate veil".

Maryland law is crystalline that the corporate entity will be disregarded only when necessary to prevent fraud or to enforce a paramount equity. The mere fact that all or almost all of the corporate stock is owned by one individual or a few individuals will not afford sufficient grounds for disregarding corporateness
If substantial ownership of the stock of a corporation in a single individual is combined with other factors which support disregarding the corporation on grounds of fundamental equity, a court may pierce the corporate veil. Factors weighed in an analysis to determine whether a corporation is the ‘alter ego’ or instrumentality of the individual stockholder are:

• Whether the corporation was grossly under-capitalized
• Corporation’s failure to observe corporate formalities
• Non-payment of dividends
• Corporation’s insolvency
• Dominant stockholder’s siphoning of corporate funds
• Non-functioning of officers or directors
• Absence of corporate records
• Corporation’s status as a facade for the stockholders’ operations

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 Posted on September 13, 2012 in Medical Malpractice

Numerous Maryland hospitals are currently in the process of testing almost 2,000 patients who may have been exposed to hepatitis C, a viral disease that typically affects the liver.

David Kwiatkowski, an employee at as many as eleven hospitals nationwide, was arrested in July 2012 after authorities learned he had been injecting himself with syringes filled with stolen narcotics at the hospitals where he worked, and then leaving the contaminated needles to be used on other patients. Investigators believe Kwiatkowski may have had hepatitis C since at least June 2010, increasing the likelihood that he infected patients who came in contact with these syringes.

In Maryland, Kwiatkowski is known to have worked at four hospitals including Johns Hopkins Hospital, Maryland General Hospital, Baltimore VA Medical Center and Southern Maryland Hospital. At Johns Hopkins Hospital, three people have tested positive for a hepatitis C strain the same or similar to Kwiatkowski which indicates their cases may be related.
While no patients have yet filed a lawsuit against Johns Hopkins Hospital or one of the other Maryland hospitals where Kwiatkowski worked, a Kansas resident filed suit against a Columbia-based staffing agency for failing to report Kwiatkowski even though they knew he had stolen narcotics.

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 Posted on August 24, 2012 in Medical Malpractice

After pushing hospitals to replace paper records with electronic ones, many policymakers now believe the next step in improving the quality of medical care is to reduce the number of errors made by doctors. One study recently found that putting a child’s photo in their electronic hospital chart reduced one type of medical error – a patient getting a test or treatment intended for someone else due to a doctor’s misplaced orders. An article about the study can be found here.

The Children’s Hospital of Colorado found that misplaced orders were the second-most common reason that patients received care not meant for them in a quality improvement program conducted in 2009. The hospital reacted to this result by changing its computer system so that each order for a test or treatment required an affirmative "verification" that the order was aligned with the correct patient which included a photo of the child.
The results reflected the success of this policy change: in 2010, the hospital had twelve incidents in which a child received care intended for another patient because of misplaced orders, but after implementing the photo policy, that number fell to three.

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 Posted on August 01, 2012 in Medical Malpractice

In late June, one of the largest medical malpractice verdicts in Maryland was handed down by a Baltimore City jury against Johns Hopkins Hospital along with Johns Hopkins Health Systems Corp. The jury awarded the family of a child born with cerebral palsy and seizure disorder $55 Million.

The case stems from what was expected to be an emergency Caesarean section, but various medical mistakes and doctor errors resulted in a wait of more than two hours. The child was born with permanent and severe mental and physical disabilities as a result of loss of oxygen to the brain during the wait. Johns Hopkins Hospital continues to dispute any doctor error or medical malpractice and indicated that they will appeal the verdict.

The $55 Million verdict included a $25 Million award for future medical expenses based upon a life-care plan, $4 Million for future lost wages, and $26 Million for non-economic damages including thing such as pain and suffering. Although the award will be reduced as a result of Maryland’s medical malpractice cap on damages, the actual award will still be around $30 Million.
Almost all of the hospitals in the Baltimore area have faced allegations involving negligent delivery, including Johns Hopkins Hospital and University of Maryland Medical Center. As an experienced Baltimore, Maryland medical malpractice lawyer, I have handled a number of medical malpractice cases involving birth injuries, which almost always involve permanent and severe disabilities. I understand that bringing suit in these cases is important because of the expense associated with long-term care for a child suffering from a disability. To see some of the cases I have handled, click here.

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