Legal Question in Civil Litigation in Maryland

a natural change of venue

My family was just recently involved in a civil law suit where

my father was given HIV positive blood in 1984 and eventually died in 1989 of complications related to aids. To make a long

story short; we filed suit against the blood bank in 1990, and it took the judge 5 years to give a ruling that we could sue. then it took another 6 years to get in front of a jury. The first time the jury was deadlocked for 6 hours and the verdict eventually went in favor of the defendant blood bank. Having witnessed what i felt was improper treatment of our expert witness by the judge, i felt that an appeal was in order. The supremecourt agreed and ordered a re-trial while strongly repremanding the superior court judge. Our new trial ended last week and after jus 3 1/2 hours the jury found for the defendant blood bank again. There was more than enough evidence to conclude that there is a chance that the blood bank was neglegent, but I contend that the judge did not handle this case properly by and by drawing it out so long gave the defendant an unfair advantage through a natural change of venue. had the case been tried in 1990 or 1991 the

verdict may have been totally different.


Asked on 10/25/02, 2:01 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Ranji Garrett Law Office of Ranji M. Garrett

Re: a natural change of venue

Unless there was some sort of misconduct on the part of the judge, it is unlikely you will get a new trial due solely to the fact that it took so long for the case to go to trial. (I will say that the case taking 11 years to go to trial does seem excessive.) However, it will probably be worth your time to talk to a lawyer about whether there is a good chance of you prevailing on appeal or if you would just be wasting your time and money. I would urge you to not put this off as generally you must file an appeal within 30 days of the court's judgment.

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Answered on 10/26/02, 8:10 am


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