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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.

“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.

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.

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.

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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.

Plaintiff had what I thought was a tough case at trial because Illinois law sets a high bar for "contact" participant sport injuries, requiring willful or wanton conduct which is certainly a tougher standard than ordinary negligence.

I have always disliked this judicially created exception to the usual "reasonable person" standard in Illinois so I'm a glad to see that this incredibly sympathetic plaintiff was able to get a meaningful recovery.

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For mainstream Catholics, this is one of the few ways we have to publicly celebrate our faith. Many faiths of the world have ways you can, for lack of a better phrase, wear your religion on your sleeve at trial. Jewish lawyers have yarmulkes, female Muslim lawyers have headscarfs, some Sikh attorneys have turbans, etc. Would a judge every ask any of these people to remove their religious garb? Of course not. Yet, in this case, the judge asked the prosecutor to remove his ashes. The prosecutor removed the ashes and the trial continued.

Do I think this was unfair? Yes. But the judge was in a no-win situation. It would also be unfair the state of Iowa to piggyback off of the prosecutor's show of piety because religious faith does influence jurors. (If you have any doubt about this, read the section on religion in David Ball and Don Keenan's book Damages.) So, on balance, I think the judge did the right thing and picked the integrity of a serious criminal trial over the prosecutor's expression of faith. Still, I don't like it.

This is one of those situations where you would really hate to be a judge.

Houghton observed a drug sale on North Eutaw Street in Baltimore City through a security camera feed. Three persons participated in the sale: the drug dealer, a male purchaser, and an alleged female purchaser who was wearing a white shirt or coat. As the transaction was being completed, Houghton contacted an arresting team, comprising Officer Timothy Williams and another officer, and instructed them to arrest the participants in the sale. The arresting team took the dealer and the male purchaser into custody, finding drugs on each of them, but the alleged female purchaser had left the scene. Houghton then witnessed, through the video feed, the alleged female purchaser embrace a second woman nearby. Houghton assumed that the embrace concealed the transfer or sale of drugs from the female purchaser to the second woman. This second woman was wearing a black jacket, dark jeans, and carrying a red umbrella. Houghton moved the camera back to the arrest, and in doing so, lost sight of the second woman.

After monitoring the arrest, Houghton scanned the area for the female purchaser and the second woman. The female purchaser was no longer in view, but Houghton could see someone whom he believed to be the second woman. In fact, the person in Houghton’s view was Forrest, who was standing some distance away at a nearby bus stop. Forrest was wearing different colored pants and jacket than the second woman, though both were carrying red umbrellas. Houghton instructed Williams to arrest Forrest. Williams approached Forrest, and asked if she had “anything illegal” on her person; Forrest said she did not, and consented to a search of her person. The search revealed no contraband, but Houghton nonetheless instructed Williams to arrest Forrest. Williams suggested that Houghton review the video footage to make certain that Forrest was indeed the second woman. Houghton did not do so, but nonetheless confirmed that Forrest was to be arrested. Williams handcuffed and arrested Forrest, over Forrest’s protests, and placed her with the other arrestees. Forrest testified at trial that she overheard Williams discussing the possibility that he may have arrested the wrong person, and that Williams was instructed to take her into custody nonetheless. Forrest was moved to Central Booking, though she was not summoned to court and charges against her were eventually dismissed.

The jury awarded $171.60 in actual damages, $180,000.00 in compensatory damages, and no punitive damages.

Plaintiff in this case was put in just an awful situation. Can you imagine how you would feel? Still, I can't help but wonder about how long her pain and suffering was in this case. I have clients who are in physical pain every day of their lives and have accumulated large medical bills and get a similar recovery.

I'm not condemning this verdict and it is worth nothing that everything I know about this case is quoted in the facts above. You have to sit on a jury to know what you think the real value of the case is. It seems overwhelmingly likely that the jury really liked the Plaintiff and did not like the police officer. All I'm saying is that my greatest sympathies clearly lean towards people whose lives have been changed forever from physical injury.

You can read the full opinion here.

Lord & Whip's slogan is "A Century's Perspective: A Modern Approach." No matter how good of a lawyer the last remaining partner may be, it might be a good idea to pull this sign down if he is under 130 years-old.

I've probably reported on this story so much because Lord & Whip was involved in one of our first big wrongful death cases when we started this law firm. Lord & Whip had nice offices - albeit in Charles Center South on 36 Charles Place, a building I have never particularly liked, mostly because I don't like the elevators. Lord & Whip seemed like a good firm, they had a good reputation and seemed to run professional shop. If you had told me then that they would have one partner in 2010, I would have said you are crazy. I guess this is life as a lawyer for many in this new legal economy.

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I really can't think of a dumber lawsuit. Couldn't these victims just get off Facebook?

What is interesting is that substantially the same case was tried in front of the same judge in September and a mistrial was granted because the jury was deadlocked. It is amazing how two different jury panels can see the same case so differently.

The plaintiffs' law firm is one I associate with defense work: Kerr McDonald. Walmart's lawyer was the highly regarded - on both sides of the v - Christopher R. Dunn, with DeCaro, Doran, Siciliano, Gallagher & DeBlasis.