Maryland Lawyer Blog

The Texas Supreme Court heard oral arguments on whether to strip away a $5 entrance tax to watch strippers in Texas.

Get it? Strip away? You don't like it? Well, I stole it from someone else anyway.

This pole tax - another dumb play on words I did not originate - requires strip clubs in Texas pay a $5 entrance fee. Judges questioned whether strip bar can be singled out for higher taxes. To date, the tax has brought in over $13.6 million. Good money for a state - like every other - that is cash strapped.

I really could not care less about this issue. If is is unconstitutional, it seems pretty harmless. Isn't a tax on alcohol the same thing?

The Baltimore Sun writes today about the Maryland Senate's get tough position on law students who have the temerity to ask courts to enforce the Clean Water Act. Sure, clean water is great. But you can't enforce this act against Perdue Chicken because they have lots of political muscle in this state. So the Maryland Senate is going to slap around the University of Maryland law clinics by requiring them to produce a list of all the plaintiffs law students have represented over the past two years. If they don't, they will lose $250,000 in funding.

The Baltimore Sun and the commenters to the story call this out for what it is.

The Maryland Court of Appeals made us all a little bit safer by its ruling in MVA v. Dove. I like safer. Whether there was justice in this individual case, I have no idea.

In Dove, the defendant rear-ends a car while driving his motorcycle on Route 4 in Calvert County. When the Calvert County Sheriff’s Office arrived at the scene they found the Defendant being treated by the EMT. The officer noticed red, watery eyes and a strong odor of alcohol coming from him. He used the "I had one beer" defense and said he was afraid of needles so he couldn't take a blood test to determine his BAC.

The court overturned a Calvert County judge who found that MVA could not suspend the Defendant's license.

I think you should have to take a blood test and your license should be suspended if you don't. I think this is a policy that will save lives in the long run. Whether or not ultimate justice was served in this case is a more difficult question: the Defendant's breath test showed a 0.00. Read the full opinion for all of the details on this case. It is an interesting read.

A teenage girl portrayed as a spoiled out-of-touch teen beauty queen on ABC's "Wife Swap" filed a $100 million lawsuit against the network, alleging the show is a charade.

Really? Who would have imagined?

Obviously, this is the dictionary definition of a frivolous lawsuit on so many different levels. It is obviously easy to blame the girl who said on the show that she feels "sorry for people that are not gorgeous people." But, really, why was this suit filed? Dollars to donuts, it was because a lawyer wanted to get his/her name in the paper. In terms of public relations for lawyers, this is the kind of stuff that balances out in the public's mind thousands of hours of charitable efforts and other good works that lawyers do.

This is your incredible story of the day and maybe the week. From the Baltimore Sun:

Baltimore County District Judge G. Darrell Russell Jr. took the unusual step last week of allowing the defendant to leave court to obtain a marriage license and married the couple later in his chambers. About 20 minutes later, his new wife invoked marital privilege so she would not be required to testify against her husband.

The case came to an end with the judge finding the defendant not guilty, saying, "I found you not guilty, so I can't sentence you as a defendant in any crimes, but earlier today, I sentenced you to life married to her." Later, the three of them went to Bill Bateman's for shots. (Okay, I made up the Bill Bateman's part.)

More incredibly, the idea of the judge marrying the victim and the accused came from the judge himself. If this is true, it is absolutely unbelievable. I would not be surprised if this gets national attention. Groups fighting domestic violence are understandably apoplectic.

I have never been before this judge but he is well respected by the one lawyer in my office I talked to about this story. I hate seeing a good judge - or anyone - brought down but just one stupid thing that they thought was the right thing at the time they were doing it. But, for better and for worse, that is the way it goes.

The Baltimore Examiner has an interesting commentary on the appointment of newly appointed Anne Arundel County District Court Judge Thomas V. Miller III, who is the son of Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller, Jr. The question asked by the author is essentially whether "blatant nepotism" is a good thing. Isn't it great to set up a straw man like that? How do you lose the argument when it is framed that way?

“I think he probably will be a good judge, but the appearances just don't look right,” Harris said. Dr. Harris expressed his strong view by not voting. Brave. Reportedly, he was originally planning to express his opposition by shooting Mike Miller a sideways glare but chickened out.

Okay, I'm obviously making that up but you get the point. The author is a Republican trying to make a point. The Republican hero of the article was Andy Harris who did not even vote on Judge Miller's confirmation. If Judge Miller's qualifications were legitimately at issue, what would that say about the Republicans in the state senate who unanimously approved him?

I'm fine with attacking any appointed judge's credentials. But this article attacks Judge Miller's credentials without actually attacking his credentials, simply pointing to the fact that he is young. His age? I don't know. The article does not bother to even mention it.

Everyone agrees we need qualified judges and governors should not appoint judges based on pure politics. But potential judges should also not be disqualified from judicial appointments because they have politically influential fathers.

A divided Maryland Court of Appeals took away a Baltimore County jury verdict against Bank of America on Thursday in a case relevant to personal injury lawyers to the extent that it underscores when expert testimony may be needed at trial.

This case appears to be the classic "money grubber woman takes advantage of old man" story. BOA allowed said money grubber to add her name on to the man's account. After his death, his son looked at the bank statements and brought a claim on behalf of the Estate against BOA for breach of contract and negligence for allowing the woman to be added onto the account in the first place.

The jury bought it, awarding $23,475 on the breach of contract claim and $7,600 on the negligence claim. The Maryland Court of Special Appeals reversed, finding that expert testimony was necessary to establish BOA's standard of care when adding an individual’s name to a bank account.

The Maryland high court affirmed the CSA ruling, agreeing that expert testimony was required to establish the scope of the bank’s duty unless the alleged negligence so obviously deviated from the applicable standard of care that the jury could appreciate the deviation without expert testimony. In this case, the court felt that the negligence was not obvious because the process of fraud avoidance “may occur behind closed doors, out of the sight of the customer, and may involve numerous unknown procedures.”

The dissent says it does not matter how the sausage is made - if the system is flawed the system is flawed so it does not matter what happened behind closed doors. I don't have a big opinion on this case but I certainly agree that it seems like overkill to have to bring a banking expert in to state the obvious: you have to verify signatures and make sure people have the authority they claim to have.

The problem with this case for consumer lawyers is that it imposes a requirement of an expert witness to prove negligence in cases where the case is not going to have a large enough upside to justify an expert. Maryland accident lawyers have been using the 10-104 mechanism to get around the need for expert testimony in small car accident cases. But, under this ruling, a lot of valid small cases are not going to be brought because the lawyers and clients will not want to front the money for an expert.

Great story in the Maryland Daily Record on a lawyer at Thomas & Libowitz P.A. in Baltimore, who is pursuing a master’s degree in theology while maintaining his law practice, hoping to serve as a pastoral life director or pastoral associate after he retires from practicing law.

Newsflash: the legal job market is a jungle. According to the National Association of Law Placement, 2010 summer associate positions are at at least 17 year low (the NALP has only been collecting data for 17 years).

It is tough job market for new lawyers. But law students and young lawyers should keep in mind that the legal market has had peeks and valleys as long as anyone can remember. The market is going to change again and people scrambling for jobs are going to have their pick of good jobs. It is just hard to imagine right now if you have never seen the highs and lows.

The Maryland Court of Special Appeals decided this week in Benway v. Maryland Port Administration where a pro se Plaintiff raised an interesting yet still useless question: Is it error to rule on a summary judgment motion filed after the scheduling order deadline?

The question is interesting because the current version of Maryland Rule 2-501 does not contain the phrase, “file at any time,” because amendments to the Rule in 2004 took the language out in light of the nearly universal use of scheduling orders. But, the question is ultimately just an academic exercise because if you win on "the motion was filed late" argument, you are still going to lose a directed verdict because the evidence never comes out better than "most favorable to the Plaintiff." So Plaintiff's winning this motion is only a temporary stay of execution.