Posted on March 16, 2011 in Medical Malpractice

A Baltimore eye doctor has been accused by the U.S. government of committing fraud by billing thousands and thousands of dollars for hundreds of unnecessary eye procedures that he performed on dozens of people at an outpatient clinic owned by Bon Secours Hospital. The accusations are set forth in a federal lawsuit which claims that between 10/29/02 and 4/14/09 Dr. John Arthur Kiely performed laser eye surgery on patients who did not need the procedure, and thus falsely billed Medicare and Medicaid for the unnecessary procedures. Dr. Kiely also has offices on St. Paul Street and Mercy Medical Center.

According to the lawsuit, Dr. Kiely sometimes performed the unnecessary procedures multiple times on a single patient, which clearly is medical malpractice. The procedures are alleged to have caused people to suffer unnecessary medical complications, including blindness in one woman. Dr. Kiely has had offices on St. Paul Street and at Mercy Medical Center.

The allegations of against Dr. Kiely sound similar to those against two other Maryland doctors. The first is Dr. Mark G. Midei who has been sued in hundreds of cases for allegedly placing unnecessary cardiac stents into patients at St. Joseph Medical Center in Towson. The second is Dr. John R. McLean, a Salisbury doctor who was criminally indicted for fraud resulting from allegedly placing unnecessary stents in patients at Peninsula Regional Medical Center.

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 Posted on March 16, 2011 in Family Law

I recently defended a modification of child support case (the father was seeking a decrease) in the Circuit Court for Howard County and after a hearing the Court determined there was not a material change in circumstance to warrant a modification of the child support currently being paid to my client.

I believe the concept of a ‘material change in circumstance’ can often be misinterpreted to mean ANY change in circumstance, and that is not the case. In this particular situation the parties divorced late 2009, and child support and non-modifiable alimony were calculated and agreed upon. At the time of divorce, the parties agreed to leave the alimony payment outside of the child support calculation and agreed to a slightly higher amount of child support as they believed it was in the children’s best interest. Less than a year later, the father (ex-husband) filed to modify child support, seeking a lower amount, alleging that he changed jobs and was earning less (about 5% less), his ex-wife was earning a small income, and alimony should now be incorporated into the child support guideline worksheet.

In the State of Maryland, the Court may modify a child support award subsequent to the filing of a motion for modification and upon a showing of a material change in circumstance, See Annotated Code of Maryland Family Law Article 12-104. The issue becomes what is a ‘material’ change in circumstance. A change has been determined to be ‘material’ when it meets two requirements (1) the change must be relevant to the level of support a child is actually receiving or entitled to receive, and (2) the change must be of a sufficient magnitude to justify judicial modification of the support order. Oftentimes, a change that affects the income pool used to calculate child support obligations upon which the child support award was based; incarceration of a parent; increase and/or decrease in parenting time; are all relevant to whether there has been a ‘material’ change in circumstance.

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 Posted on March 12, 2011 in Criminal Defense

As an Aggressive Baltimore Maryland Criminal Attorney, I have successfully defended hundreds of individuals who have been charged with assaulting police officers. The garden variety assault on a police officer case usually involves a defendant who is being arrested for another reason and the police officer claims that the defendant resisted that arrest and assaulted the officer in the process. These cases are usually relatively easy to deal with so long as the police officer was not seriously injured as most judges are aware of the tendency to exaggerate these incidents by the police.

I successfully defended a client who has charged in a not so typical assault on a police officer in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City this past week. The client was found not guilty in spite of the fact that my client had in fact punched a police officer who was sitting on a bar stool in a bar and the fact that the entire incident was caught on the establishment’s security video system.https://www.silvermanthompson.com/lawyer-attorney-1300820.html Here are the facts:

My client and several of his friends went into a bar in Baltimore City at roughly 1:30AM one night last year to purchase beer to go. My client, who had admittedly been drinking that evening, got into a verbal dispute with two individuals who were sitting at the bar drinking beer. My client’s friends pulled him away from the dispute and seemingly avoided an altercation. However, a few moments later my client went back over to these individuals and the argument resumed. Eventually my client punched one of the individuals in the face, knocking him from the bar stool to the ground. These individuals, who turned out to be Baltimore City Police Officers, pursued my client as he fled outside. Eventually my client ended up in the hospital with multiple abrasions, bruises and a concussion. Neither officer was injured in the incident.

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 Posted on March 12, 2011 in Driving Under the Influence

As a Baltimore Maryland Criminal and DUI Attorney, I defend people charged with DUI and DWI almost every day. It takes many years of experience to determine which cases should be taken to trial and which cases should be plea bargained. I had a case falling into the former category last week in the District Court for Baltimore City.

My client was found not guilty after I attacked the credibility of the MDTA Police Officer’s depiction of my client’s performance on the field sobriety tests and perhaps more importantly, pointed out the court what he left out of his report. Here are the facts:

My client is a 57 year old woman who has owned and tended a local bar for 28 years. She had never before been in trouble with the law and had certainly never been charged with DUI or DWI. Those facts together caused me to be predisposed to believe her version of the events as I found it difficult to believe that someone who had worked in the bar industry for that many years could have avoided being charged with DUI if she weren’t very careful about her alcohol intake while working. Few industries have higher instances of DUI and DWI arrests than does the bar and restaurant industry for the simple fact that these workers are around alcohol so often.

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 Posted on March 12, 2011 in Personal Injury

A Tour Bus travelling back from the Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, Conn., to Chinatown, New York City crashed on I95 near the exit for the Huntington Parkway. News reports have confirmed at least 13 dead with many others injured, some critically. A spokesman for the New york State Police indicated that he expected the death toll to rise as several of the critically injured appeared to be in grave condition.

At least one report to 911 claimed that the bus was cut off by a tracker trailer that then left the scene. Police are interviewing witnesses and reviewing video to try to determine the accuracy of that report and if true, to locate the truck and its driver. The investigation should be helped by the fact that the driver of the bus has apparently survived the accident although he was injured. Police expect to interview him soon and expect the interview to be very helpful in determining the cause of the accident.

If the report of the 18 wheeler causing the accident turns out to be credible, serious questions will need to be answered by the truck driver and his employer. Among those questions will be was the driver in compliance with federal law in terms of the number of hours he had been behind the wheel. As we all know, fatigued truck drivers have been the cause of many tragic highway accidents over the years. Studies have concluded that fatigued drivers pose as much if not more risk to others on the road as do intoxicated drivers.

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 Posted on March 10, 2011 in Family Law

The legislation pending to allow same-sex couples to marry is scheduled for a final vote this Friday, March 11, 2011 in the Maryland House of Delegates as reported by the Baltimore Sun. The legislation has already passed the Maryland Senate and the House Judiciary Committee. The passage of the bill, if signed by the Governor, would allow same-sex couples to marry in the State of Maryland. The passage of this bill would not afford same-sex couples who chose to marry more rights than those of their heterosexual counterparts. The bill would solely extend the civil protections already afforded to married couples to same-sex couples who chose to marry.

For more information, contact Monica Scherer, Esq. at 410-625-4740

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 Posted on March 09, 2011 in Medical Malpractice

An Indiana jury has awarded a $2.5 million verdict to a former police officer who claimed that his doctor committed medical malpractice by failing to diagnose his colon cancer in 2004. The verdict will be reduced to Indiana’s cap of $1.25 million on medical malpractice cases. The man claimed that he complained of rectal bleeding and other gastric complaints to the doctor, who failed to order either a sigmoidoscopy or colonoscopy to rule out colon cancer, although an upper G.I. test was ordered due to some other complaints. The man later moved to another state and went to another doctor several years later with the same complaint of rectal bleeding. That doctor ordered testing in 2006 that found the cancer was at Stage 4 and incurable. The man now is 42 years old and has been given a prognosis of less than a year to live. A copy of an article regarding the case can be found here.

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 Posted on March 07, 2011 in Family Law

The same sex marriage bill passed at the House Judiciary Committee on Friday, March 4, 2011 by a 12-10 vote as the Baltimore Sun reports. This means that the bill will move to the full House of Delegates for debate, which is scheduled to start as early as this Tuesday, March 8, 2011. As we previously blogged, on February 25, 2011 the bill if passed into law would allow same sex couples to wed. Delegates who had previously opposed the bill have expressed that they will vote to pass the bill as they believe it should ultimately be up to the voters to decide. As the Sun reports, if the bill passes in the House of Delegates, "Gov. Martin O’Malley has said he will sign the legislation if it reaches his desk. Opponents could then gather the roughly 55,000 signatures needed to petition the new law to referendum, where voters in the 2012 presidential election will decide whether to repeal it or leave it on the books.

For more information, contact Monica Scherer, Esq. at 410-625-4740

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 Posted on March 06, 2011 in Family Law

There is currently legislation pending before the Maryland General Assembly that would create a rebuttable presumption that joint legal and physical custody to each parent for equal periods of time is in the best interest of the child in certain custody proceedings. You can find the pending legislation at the Maryland General Assembly’s website. This bill would require parties in custody proceedings to overcome the statutory presumption that joint custody is in the child’s best interest. This would mean parties would enter a custody hearing on equal footing with respect to having the child in their shared custody and the Judge would have to find that one of the parties met their burden of overcoming the presumption in order to award a party sole physical or legal custody. The presumption aligns with the rights of parents without a custody order, in that parents have equal rights to their children, without a custody order stating otherwise. However, there is currently a great debate among family law attorneys over this pending legislation. Those who propose the bill support fathers’ rights, believe that parents may fight less over custody if the presumption is in place, and believe this takes such an important decision out of the court’s hands. Those who oppose the bill believe that the parties who have to take their custody case to trial should not be the ones who have a presumption of joint custody because they can not get along. Further, they do not believe that this decision should be taken out of the court’s hands, that the other best interest factors will not be considered if the presumption is in place, that those who are awarded joint custody who can not communicate will be back in court again and again, and that the current system is working well.

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 Posted on March 04, 2011 in Medical Malpractice

The surviving family of a 37 year old Alabama man has won a $3 million jury verdict from a local hospital. The man died a few days after surgery for a duodenal ulcer. The family claimed that the man bled to death after negligent surgery, and negligent follow-up care after discharge. Specifically, the family alleged that the man’s ulcer, a perforation in the first section of the small intestine, was large and not treatable by the standard surgical procedures. The family also alleged that the man was sent home after surgery with a very low blood count and was not adequately examined by his doctor before being discharged. A copy of an article regarding the case can be found here.

I have handled many negligent surgery cases. The key to success in such cases is obtaining all of the relevant medical records, reviewing them carefully, getting a good expert witness and backing the case up with medical literature where appropriate. Also important in such a case is reviewing the medical records to make sure the post-operative care is within the standard of care and not negligent. Usually, this is done by checking the patient’s vital signs (heart rate, breathing rate, blood pressure and temperature), and drainage.

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