Annapolis Personal Injury Law Blog

A Maryland man was sent home after complaining of chest pains to his primary care physician only to die a few days later. After six years, his family finally received a settlement in November 2018.

Instead of insisting that the victim be examined in an emergency room for a heart attack, the victim was sent home in with a recommendation for a CT scan and to visit a cardiologist if his symptoms didn't improve within a few days. The victim died of coronary artery disease and multiple heart attacks a few days later.

The statistics about strokes are enough to frighten anyone. It is the fifth leading cause of death for Americans and depending on your risk factors, it may be the biggest threat to your life. With one stroke happening every 40 seconds in the U.S., physicians are trained to quickly diagnose and, when time allows, treat the stroke before permanent damage or death occurs. Unfortunately, proper diagnosis does not always happen.

When a patient dies, or suffers serious, long-term disability in the wake of a stroke, it's important for that person's loved ones to ask whether the physician followed protocol. Before you can ask that question, it's important to have a baseline understanding of what a stroke is.

Employees and independent contractors are treated differently under the law-and entitled to very different rights and benefits. An independent contractor is not eligible for workers' compensation, overtime pay, paid time off or employer-subsidized healthcare. Therefore, hiring independent contractors instead of employees can represent significant financial advantages for an employer.

Often times, employers will try to claim that an employee is actually a contractor-in order to avoid paying for such benefits. However, simply labeling a worker as an "independent contractor" is inadequate to classify them as such. Even filing a 1099 form for a worker does not automatically make them a contractor.

Using a seatbelt is so simple that it's not even covered in most driver's education classes. You pull the shoulder and lap belt across your body and click the tongue into the buckle. When you hear the click of the tongue in the buckle, you release the slack in the belt and the belt tightens to support your body. According to one Maryland State Trooper, however, most people don't know about the critical second step.

A Maryland State Trooper recently shared with a local news reporter that there really should be two clicks that you listen for.