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Legal Resources for Attorneys with Injured Clients
We believe in sharing resources and expertise with fellow members of the plaintiffs’ bar. To borrow a line from Benjamin Franklin, attorneys who represent clients with serious injuries “must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” That’s especially true in this age of constant attack on the rights of the injured from the insurance industry, the Chamber of Commerce and the interests of “organized money” (a term coined by Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, himself a plaintiffs’ lawyer).
In the links below, you will find samples of briefs we’ve filed, closing arguments we’ve given, and books and articles we’ve written on various current topics. If something you need isn’t listed, give us a call. We probably can help.
Books for Attorneys
The Fearless Cross-Examiner: Win the Witness, Win the Case, by Patrick Malone (Trial Guides, 2016). One reviewer called it the “definitive Bible on the most effective truth-revealing tool in a lawyer’s arsenal.” Another said: “How often do you see a law book that is both revolutionary and laugh-out-loud funny?” Read more reviews and order the book here.
Winning Medical Malpractice Cases With the Rules of the Road™ Technique, by Patrick Malone (with Rick Friedman) (Trial Guides, 2012). Read reviews and order the book here. Listen to podcasts adapted from the book here.
Rules of the Road: A Plaintiff Lawyer’s Guide to Proving Liability, by Rick Friedman and Patrick Malone (Trial Guides, revised and expanded 2nd edition 2010). This book has been praised by top lawyers as “must reading” for both experienced and novice trial lawyers. As one reviewer wrote: “Two brilliant lawyers, Malone and Friedman, who also happen to be brilliant advocacy writers, have written an easy-to-use, hard-to-undermine approach that will serve plaintiff’s attorneys in almost every kind of trial. This is not a book of small arms. Its major artillery.
Expert Witness Resources
Compilation of Medical Society Statements on Expert Witness Testimony
Articles
- Secret Settlements: Unethical and Bad for Your Practice
- Lessons for Trial Lawyers from Lincoln’s Greatest Speech – The Second Inaugural
- Medical Malpractice in Managing Diabetes
- Working with Experts in the Daubert Era
- Expert Witnesses and the D.C. Court of Appeals
- Burying the Ten Commandments of Cross-Examination (reprinted from Litigation journal)
- "The Power of Informed Consent,” by Peter Mullenix and Patrick Malone, Trial magazine, December 2020
- New Daubert Standard for Expert Witness Admissibility in Maryland State Courts
Briefs
- G. v. Georgetown University Hospital: The hospital filed a motion to reduce the $3.6 million verdict for a child who suffered a permanent ankle scar from a chemical burn while in intensive care. Here is plaintiff’s brief opposing the motion (which also covered issues of how one proves standard of care under D.C. law) and the court’s written decision denying the hospital’s motion and affirming the reasonableness of the jury’s verdict.
- Boone v. Goldberg: Appellee’s Brief (This successful brief led to a ruling by the Maryland Court of Appeals that physicians must inform patients about their prior experience, or lack thereof, in performing certain procedures, an important new aspect of informed consent doctrine.) Read the Maryland Court of Appeals’ decision here.
- Burke v. Groover Christie, et al.:Â (This was the second appeal of this case which had resulted in a large verdict for our client. This appeal concerned how post-judgment interest is calculated in Washington, DC.)
- Brief for Appellant
- Opinion (The appellate court found that the trial court had abused its discretion in reducing the interest on our client’s judgment.)
- Burke v. Neurology Center; Burke v. Higgins: Joint Pretrial Statement (This case, which ended in a judgment for our client for over $5 million, involved the failure of a neurologist and radiologist to recognize the plaintiff’s risk for stroke based on abnormalities in her MRI scan and her symptoms.)
- Burton v. USA: (A case about a physician failing to discuss the risk of pulmonary embolism arising from casts on the calf which immobilized the patient’s leg.)
- Plaintiff’s Trial Brief on Choice of Law (This brief, along with the reply brief, persuaded a federal judge in the District of Columbia to apply Maryland law to loss of consortium damages. The event causing the injury had occurred in D.C. but the decedent and his wife lived in Maryland, so we argued that Maryland law should apply. D.C. law would have allowed no damages for this element of loss.)
- Plaintiffs’ Reply Brief on Choice of Law
- Pretrial Order (The order reflecting the judge’s decision to apply Maryland law to the damages).
- Memorandum Opinion (The judge returned over $2 million in damages in this Federal Tort Claims Act decision.
- Cohen v. Washington Hospital Center:  This case concerns sanctions against a hospital defendant and its counsel for interfering with a deposition of the hospital’s spokesperson with a series of improper objections, witness coaching, instructions to the witness not to answer the question, and other tactics not allowed by Superior Court Civil Rule 30(c), which is identical to the Federal Rule of Civil Procedure on the same topic. We have gathered here the following tools for other lawyers combating improper deposition conduct:
- Motion for sanctions and reply brief on motion. Exhibits to the motion, including an annotated transcript of the subject deposition, can be found here.
- Transcript of hearing before the trial judge.
- Opposition brief on defendant’s motion to strike request for attorney fees.
- Order by the trial judge assessing total sanctions in the amount of $43,321.
- Estate of Kurstin, M.D. v. Lordan, et al.:Â (In order to avoid an empty chair argument being made by the non-settling defendant, the settling defendant assigned his contribution claim to the plaintiff, and we proceeded to trial only on the contribution claim, which we then won in a bench trial.)
- Brief of Apellees (This was our response to the argument of the non-settling defendant that the assignment of the contribution claim was illegal.)
- Appellate Decision (The appellate court upheld the trial court’s decision that the assignment of the contribution claim to the plaintiff was reasonable and allowed under D.C. law.)
- LeFlore v. Washington Hospital Center Corporation, Inc.: Plaintiff’s Opposition to Defendant’s Motion for Protective Order (Filed in response to the defense trying to arrange ex parte meetings with physicians who treated the plaintiff subsequent to Washington Hospital Center.)
- Lemma v. Peter: Memorandum of Points and Authorities in Support of Plaintiff’s Motion for Summary Judgment on Negligence as a Matter of Law (Filed in support of a motion to find a landlord negligent per se for a case of lead poisoning in an apartment building in DC.)
- Semsker, et al. v. Lockshin M.D., et al.: Third Amended Complaint for Wrongful Death – Medical Negligence(This case arose from the failure of a dermatologist to remove a mole which later turned into a malignant melanoma. The jury returned a $5.8 million verdict.)
- Robinson v. Azer: Plaintiffs’ Opposition to Defendants’ Motion for New Trial and/or Remittitur.  This medical malpractice case in DC ended in a record verdict of $8.35 million for Malone clients Mr. and Mrs. Robinson. Here is the plaintiffs’ brief opposing the new trial motion and the court’s oral ruling denying the defense motion, in which the court says plaintiffs’ counsel said nothing improper during the trial and that the evidence of the orthopedic surgeon defendant’s negligence was “overwhelming” and the injuries were “truly profound.”
Closing Arguments in Trial
We post closing arguments from trials because other attorneys tell us the transcripts are helpful to read to get ideas for their own cases, in arguing issues of both liability and damages. Here is a sampler:
- R.G. v. Georgetown University Hospital:Â What is fair compensation for a baby who grows up carrying a large tight scar on her ankle due to a negligently inflicted chemical burn from an infiltrated i.v. line in a hospital? A jury heard evidence about multiple medical and surgical procedures that our client has had to undergo and will face through her adolescence, and after that she will still have a highly visible scar from the shrunken tissue on her ankle. A jury decided that reasonable compensation would be $3.6 million.
- Boone v. Goldberg: During ear surgery the plaintiff’s brain was accidentally punctured by a surgical instrument. The surgeon later denied that any error had occurred. The jury returned a verdict just under $1 million.
- Jones v. Prince George’s County, Maryland: A young man was shot and killed by an undercover police officer. Patrick Malone & Associates was able to collect $2.5 million for the decedent’s daughter and father.
- Robinson v. Rida Azer and American International Orthopaedic Association: An orthopedic surgeon performed a knee replacement on a patient that ended up in an above-knee amputation. The verdict was $8.35 million for the patient and his wife.
- Semsker, et al. v. Lockshin M.D., et al.: The plaintiff went on five occasions for treatment to a dermatologist, but the physician left a mole on his back that later became a malignant melanoma from which he died. The jury handed down a $5.8 million verdict.
- Simpson v. Southwest Virginia Physicians for Women: A woman went in for amniocentesis of her unborn baby, but the procedure caused bleeding in the child. Ultimately, the girl was born with brain and kidney damage from anemia due to the unchecked bleeding. The verdict totaled $9 million for the mother and her daughter.
- Wood v. Surgical Associates Chartered: A man had surgery on his left shoulder, but during the procedure the nerves controlling his left hand were severely damaged. The jury in Maryland returned a verdict of nearly $1.5 million.
Discovery Requests and Sanctions
Audit Trail for a Hospital Record: Compelling Production
- Kipoliongo, et al. v. Tchabo, M.D., et al.:Â (One of two twins died in utero approximately thirty minutes before delivery as a result of failure to vigilantly observe the fetal heart monitor.)
- Plaintiff’s Third Request for Production of Documents to Defendant Virginia Hospital Center (The nurse who was assigned to the fetal heart monitor claimed she had made handwritten notes during the procedure, and then entered them into the electronic system afterwards, subsequently getting rid of the originals. The plaintiff sought any notations made by the same nurse for other patients in the same time window.)
- Plaintiff’s Motion to Compel Production of Documents from Defendant Virginia Hospital Center
- Order regarding Plaintiff’s Motion to Compel Discovery (allowing plaintiff to obtain audit trail data from another patient being treated by the same nurse.)
Deposition of a hospital’s spokesperson: Compelling a hospital to designate a spokesperson
Here are briefs and court rulings in two cases in which we had to ask the court to force a defendant hospital to designate a spokesperson for a deposition, something corporate defendants, especially in the medical field, often resist. They employ a variety of arguments, all of which the trial courts rejected in these cases.Â
Fiedler v. Sibley Memorial Hospital:Â (In this case the defendant hospital employed a number of arguments to try to avoid designating a Rule 30(b)(6) spokesperson for deposition.)
- Plaintiff’s Motion to Compel Defendant to Designate a Rule 30(b)(6) Spokesperson for a Deposition
- Defendant’s Opposition to Plaintiff’s Motion to Compel Defendant to Designate a Rule 30(b)(6) Spokesperson for a Deposition
- Plaintiff’s Reply to Defendant’s Opposition to Plaintiff’s Motion to Compel Defendant to Designate a Rule 30(b)(6) Spokesperson for a Deposition
- Opinion Compelling Defendant to Designate a Rule 30(b)(6) Spokesperson for a Deposition (The court rejected all of the defendant’s arguments including that the treating employees could be individually deposed and that it would require a privileged peer review investigation to answer plaintiff’s questions.)
Haywood v. Medstar-Georgetown Medical Center, Inc.
(A patient died of brain damage arising from respiratory arrest due to a hematoma in her neck that choked off air flow a few hours after cervical spine surgery.)
- Motion to Compel Defendant to Designate a Spokesperson for a Deposition (This motion argued that Medstar-Georgetown should designate a single representative to be deposed as to the corporation’s collective knowledge of the patient’s treatment.)
- Plaintiff’s Reply to Defendant’s Opposition to Motion to Compel Defendant to Designate a Spokesperson for a Deposition (The defendant had claimed that to designate a spokesperson would violate peer review privilege.)
- Order Granting Motion to Compel Defendant to Designate a Spokesperson for a Deposition (The judge found that although the peer review itself would not have to be disclosed by the spokesperson, the primary medical records used in the review were not rendered non-discoverable simply because they were used in the review.)
Rideshare Services: Discovery Requests
The Patrick Malone law firm has extensive experience with lawsuits against rideshare services including Uber and Lyft. Here are written discovery requests we served in one case against Uber and its driver (a man named Williams). We learned early in the case that Mr. Williams worked full-time for Uber, yet Uber contended it was not responsible legally as his employer for its driver’s negligence, claiming he was an independent contractor. Therefore much of the discovery from our side focused on learning the details of corporate control over the driver, so that we could argue that Uber was liable for the driver beyond the limits of the driver’s insurance coverage.Â
Here are the main discovery requests our firm made in that case:
- Uber/Raiser 30b6 deposition notice, third amended, plus requests for documents. (This notice covered many of the key details of corporate control over the driver.)Â
- Plaintiff’s first request for production of documents to Uber and Raiser. (This included requests that we make in many cases but also some specific to the issues here.)
- Plaintiff’s first set of interrogatories to Uber and Raiser.Â
- Plaintiff’s request for documents to Williams (Uber’s driver).Â
- Plaintiff’s interrogatories to Williams (Uber’s driver).
Sanctions For Improper Deposition Interference
- Cohen v. Washington Hospital Center:  This case concerns sanctions against a hospital defendant and its counsel for interfering with a deposition of the hospital’s spokesperson with a series of improper objections, witness coaching, instructions to the witness not to answer the question, and other tactics not allowed by Superior Court Civil Rule 30(c), which is identical to the Federal Rule of Civil Procedure on the same topic. We have gathered here the following tools for other lawyers combating improper deposition conduct:
- Motion for sanctions and reply brief on motion. Exhibits to the motion, including an annotated transcript of the subject deposition, can be found here.
- Transcript of hearing before the trial judge.
- Opposition brief on defendant’s motion to strike request for attorney fees.
- Order by the trial judge assessing total sanctions in the amount of $43,321.
