Maryland Lawyer Blog

• Yaz to stay on the market in Switzerland
• FitSugar talks about the Yaz lawsuits
• News Inferno reports on Yaz, discussing a Dutch study in the British Medical Journal that found "6.3-fold increase in venous thrombosis – a life-threatening type of blood clot – in women taking drospirenone contraceptives compared with women not taking any type of pill."
• The New York Times talks about the PR blow to Bayer as a result of the new information coming about about Yaz. “But even if Bayer can adequately respond to the safety and other concerns, some industry analysts say that the avalanche of criticism could tarnish the Yaz line’s image.”
• Tammy Heff writes: "The buzz in legal circles is whether the FDA will cause Bayer to recall Yaz given the frenzy of claims and allegations."
• A nine minute video explaining plaintiffs' lawyers argument in Yaz lawsuits.
• My Sex Professor writes about the Yaz/Yasmin/Ocella controversy.
• FiercePharma writes about the Yaz lawsuits, offering both plaintiffs' lawyers' argument and Bayer's defense of Yaz.
• Drug Recall Lawyer Blog has 10 blog post on Yaz/Yasmin/Ocella.
• Background of Yaz lawsuits, including updates on the lawsuit pending in the MDL and in claim pending in Pennsylvania state court.
• For lawyers: do you have a viable Yaz lawsuit? What to look for.

If you or someone you care for has used Yasmin/Yaz and has suffered from blood clots, stroke, DVT, heart attack or gallbladder injury, or you are an attorney with a Yasmin/Yaz case for which you would like to involve co-counsel or you think might be a candidate for a lawsuit or future potential global settlement, please call one of our Yasmin/Yaz attorneys at 800-553-8082 or click here for a free no obligation consultation on your potential Yasmin/Yaz lawsuit.

The Maryland Association of Justice is conducting a case evaluation clinic on Wednesday, October 21, 2009 at the Maryland Trial Lawyers Association in Columbia. Maryland lawyers with personal injury cases may bring their case to a panel of seasoned Maryland personal injury lawyers for a case evaluation.

As you might expect, there are relatively inexperienced lawyers at the clinic looking for insight on their cases. But here is what you might not intuitively expect: often the most experienced lawyer at the table when a case is being evaluated is the lawyer who is getting the evaluation. Why? Because many of the top personal injury lawyers in Maryland are smart enough to know that you can get a great deal of benefit from discussing your case with other seasoned personal injury lawyers (at a fraction of what such a service should really cost).

You can get more information on the case evaluation clinic here.

As long as the Internet has now been with us - a lifetime for all practical purposes for my law students today - everyone was caught flatfooted by the social media boom. (We were all foolish not to think of it sooner - we would be rich.) Like other jurisdictions, Maryland courts are looking at controlling the ramifications of Internet usage and social media interactions of jurors.

This is a draft of a new proposed Maryland Rule that will be on the agenda at the next Rules Committee meeting on October 2, 2009 in Annapolis.

• Cell phone usage in Maryland courtrooms (current list of where you can bring your cell phone into court in Maryland)
• United States District Court for Southern District of California (cell phone rules)
• Mistrial for juror tweets
• Follow the Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog on Twitter

The American Association for Justice has an ad now that I believe properly frames the medical malpractice issue in this country: the estimated 98,000 deaths from preventable medical malpractice errors is "'like two 737s crashing every day for a whole year." As the ad asks rhetorically, "Would we blame the passengers or the airlines?"

People have disputed the 98,000 number. No one really knows. But say it is half of that. Would we tolerate one 737 a day crashing?

After a short hiatus, the Maryland Lawyer Blog is back!

The Maryland Court of Appeals ruled in Kamp v. Dep't of Human Resources yesterday involving a child support dispute in Garrett County.

The case involved a man who waited nearly 13 years to dispute the paternity of his ex-wife’s child even though he’d had a vasectomy years before she conceived and a DNA test confirmed the man was not the child's father.

The opinion deals in part with an issue that is also important to personal injury lawyers in Maryland: judicial estoppel. The theory behind judicial estoppel is that litigants are not able to take positions contradictory to positions made previously during legal proceedings if such action would adversely affect the proceedings or bring the court into disrepute.

I still think there is a place for Maryland lawyers to plead in the alternative but this case will make you think it through a little more when you do that.

You can read the case or read Steve Lash's article in the Maryland Daily Record. There are not a lot of Maryland lawyers that would find the lessons of this case inapplicable to their law practice.

This may not be Maryland law related but I don't care: Sally Thorner is retiring. She has been doing the news in Baltimore for 20 years. It feels like it was yesterday. The 54-year-old anchorwoman said her last day at the station will be December 18, 2009.

She's 54 and there are not a lot of female anchors past 50. Certainly makes you wonder if she is retiring or whether she is being forced out by WJZ. If the Baltimore Sun were still alive, we might find out.