Legal Question in Personal Injury in Maryland
On this past "New Year's Eve", I was shopping in a large chain grocery store. While picking-up a jar my right middle finger recieved a inch and a half long gash, nicking the bone. The cause was a metal jar lid that had been ripped and torn. I notified the store immediately, after two or three days of fighting an infection in the area, I became concerned being a diabetic, having high blood pressure, high cholesterol, anemia and assorted other ailments, I went to the "ER". They said it look like I did a great job cleaning it and it was healing on it's own so they wouldn't sticth it, but I did recieve a "tetanus" shot. I have blood test done periodically to detect whether I contracted "AIDS, HIV, Hepatitis or anything else that might have been on that lid. The legal department of the food chain has contacted me and are interested in making a settlement, but I have no ideal where to begin negotiating, $300, $3000 or $300,000, I'm lost, can you help? I'm a retired military veteran so I was able to go on base to the "ER" and use my Tri-Care insurance which I pay for.
2 Answers from Attorneys
I would STRONGLY suggest that you hire a Maryland plaintiff's attorney to represent you. You are not dealing at arm's length with the legal department of the grocery store chain if you negotiate on your own.
With that said, here's some things to think about:
1.) Maryland, like all states, has a statute of limitations that bars certain actions like this after a set period of time. If you snooze, you lose. Don't let the grocery store legal department string you along for too long before you take formal legal action -- it could be too late at that point!
2.) FYI, the grocery store chain likely has an insurance policy to cover incidents such as this.
3.) Are you keeping copies of ALL of your receipts and medical records? At the very least, you want to make sure that you are reimbursed for all of your out-of-pocket expenses (insurance deductibles for your doctor's visits, lab costs for the blood tests, etc.) and for the cost of the actual medical treatment -- your doctor's need to be paid too.
3.) Sounds like you've dealt with some relatively significant pain and suffering issues as result of the injury -- you can recover for that too. Some Maryland lawyers use the "3x's" calculation -- you should recover about 3 times your medical bills in pain and suffering. A LOT of Maryland attorneys would dispute the 3x's number and say that the number is nowhere nearly that high or simply depends on the County that you are located (Baltimore County for instance has higher jury awards that conservative Montgomery County).
4.) Your attorney can work on "compromising" your medical bills. This basically means that medical providers are often times willing to accept less than what they normally bill to ensure that they get paid and paid quickly. As such, any compromising of your medical bills that your attorney does for you is money in your pocket.
Best of luck.*******The above is for informational purposes only and does not create an attorney-client privilege.*******
As a MD personal injury attorney for over 30 years, I can help you with this claim. There is no fee if you don't receive anything from the grocery chain. I have tried a number of such cases in Prince George's County, in the event that a settlement can't be reached.
Robert Sher
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