Malpractice Opinion in Maryland District Court
More states are adding hurdles for medical malpractice lawyers to put malpractice complaints into suit. This irritates a lot of plaintiffs' lawyers but if the goal is to reduce the number of frivolous malpractice lawsuits, this rule does do the trick. These rules make malpractice lawyers verify that they have plausible theory on the case before filing suit. It is a hassle but some level of certificate of merit type requirement probably makes sense.
The Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog has a post about one of the nuances of these rules: what is a related specialty that would allow a doctor in a different specialty to offer opinions about the standard of care. The post discusses the approach one U.S. District Court judge took on this issue, which relies heavily on similar statutory language as the one interpreted in Virginia.
