Posted on April 30, 2013 in Personal Injury

The law firm of Silverman, Thompson, Slutkin & White takes on a limited number of plaintiff’s personal injury cases each month. We limit our intake so we can provide the highest quality representation to each of our clients. To better equip our clients with an understanding of the process, we have broken down the phases of what to expect of our attorney-client relationship.

THE INITIAL CONFERENCE:

General information regarding the incident will be obtained when you are first interviewed. Certain other material relating to things you should not do will be furnished to you. You will be asked to sign authorization forms which will allow us to obtain necessary information. We will schedule a follow-up appointment for you to meet with the attorney handling your case shortly after you retain Silverman Thompson Slutkin and White.

RETAINER AGREEMENT:

This is the contract of employment between you and Silverman Thompson Slutkin and White.
Essentially it confirms that you have elected to hire Silverman Thompson Slutkin and White on a contingent-fee basis rather than an hourly or other basis. Accordingly, Silverman Thompson Slutkin and White’s fee will be one-third (35-40%) of any recovery whether obtained by suit or settlement. We do not take a case unless we think we will make a recovery. Therefore, all of our agreements are No Recovery-No Fee-No Expenses. The Retainer Agreement also confirms that for your convenience you have authorized Silverman Thompson Slutkin and White to advance money on your behalf to pay for expenses incurred for obtaining things such as medical records, medical reports, court costs and investigation costs.

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 Posted on April 22, 2013 in Personal Injury

An Ellicott City man was tragically killed this past weekend while participating in a "Tough Mudder" obstacle course. http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/howard/ellicott-city/bs-md-tough-mudder-death-20130422,0,3954904.story.

Based on what we know so far this case will almost certainly lead to a wrongful death claim against the operators of this race. Runners in these kinds of events certainly understand that they are subjecting themselves to certain risks by participating in them – twisted ankles, broken bones or even cardiac events come to mind – and probably even signed waivers to insulate the operators from liability from these known risks.

But drowning? It seems almost impossible to believe that the operators of this race would create an obstacle requiring people to traverse a plank over a body of muddy water deep enough to drown in apparently without warning the participants of the depth of the water. And if they were reckless enough to set up this kind of obstacle, it seems obvious that they should have stationed enough trained instructors in and around the obstacle to prevent such a forseeable occurrence. After all, everyone in the race is covered head to toe in mud as are the obstacles making them treacherously slippery. It is not only forseeable, it is all but certain that someone is going to slip or jump off of the obstacle into the water.

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 Posted on April 09, 2013 in Tax Controversy Litigation

File your tax returns. A week from now will be too late. It can be cumbersome, stressful and certainly annoying. But it’s one of those things in life. Do it and be done with it. Some added incentives to filing:

A. Avoid costly consequences
Did you know the IRS late-filing penalty is 5% of any unpaid tax due per month after the return’s due date? The same penalties apply to failing to file altogether. And failing to pay risks a penalty of ½ to 1% of any unpaid tax due per month. And the penalties are calculated separately from interest, which compounds daily at the current interest rate (presently 3% per year). Makes paying the current tax due (if any! You may be owed a refund, after all, and the IRS doesn’t pay interest on money you’ve failed to claim from them) fiscally savvy.

B. You can do it from home, in your pajamas
The IRS website (www.irs.gov/freefile) allows any taxpayer to file electronic returns free of charge. Gather last year’s tax return, your W-2s, 1099s and any other documents and use the IRS’s online, fillable forms to file. If you are itemizing deductions, don’t forget to include any charitable contributions, reduction in income from qualified IRA contributions, any capital gains or losses, etc. Once you’ve completed the online form, you can even set up direct deposit for any refund you may be owed, or pay electronically if you have a tax liability. Note the free e-file forms perform only basic calculations.

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 Posted on April 08, 2013 in Federal Crimes & White Collar Crimes

Very soon, the federal government could know what you bought for dinner last night, or whether you and your wife are having a nasty email fight about something very personal-and they could know this all because of CISPA-The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2013. If you’re using gmail, Google might already know this information, but our Constitution has traditionally protected us from the federal government getting its hand on such intimate, personal information without a warrant or court oversight.

CISPA is a bill that will be voted upon very soon in the U.S. House of Representatives; it allows for voluntary information sharing between private companies and the federal government. The bill’s language and provisions continue to be amended and shaped in closed-door, secret meetings by the U.S. House Intelligence Committee. In principal, the bill is supposed to prevent cyber-attacks. But it does this through sweeping, unprecedented information sharing provisions that allow and in fact encourage private companies, like Facebook and Google, to turn over every intimate detail they’ve collected about you from your online activities, your emails, your texts, your shopping habits, your web-browsing activities, etc., to the US government.

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 Posted on February 26, 2013 in Driving Under the Influence

As an Aggressive Baltimore Maryland DUI Attorney I have handled literally thousands of DUI cases both as a former prosecutor and as a defense attorney. I have written several times in this blog that it is extremely difficult these days to secure a not guilty in a DUI case on the issue of whether in fact the client was under the influence or impaired. I have won more than my fair share of DUI trials over the last 15 years since I left the State’s Attorney’s Office but the overwhelming majority have been on technical issues such as an illegal stop or the State’s inability to prove that my client was the operator of the vehicle.

I published a blog last week about a DUI trial that I won on the impairment issue but that was only one of two that week. I won a second on this issue in spite of the fact that my client had 3 recently consumed beer cans in the car when he was stopped and told the police that he would not do the field sobriety tests because he "would fail them". That case was scheduled in the District Court for Baltimore County last Friday. Here are the facts:

My client who was admittedly suffering from a combination of psychiatric and alcohol issues, was operating his vehicle in the Catonsville area of Baltimore County one day last summer. It was in fact a few days after the first big wind storm we had when many people lost power for a week or more. He was unfortunately one of those people so he decided to sit in his car to listen to the radio and drink beer. After a few beers he decided to take a drive to survey the damage which was needless to say a mistake.

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 Posted on February 26, 2013 in Victim's Rights

This past week, Marylanders were stunned and sickened by news that Johns Hopkins’ gynecologist, Dr. Nikita Levy, allegedly used still cameras and video recording devices to capture surreptitiously his gynecological examinations of potentially hundreds of his patients, and that he allegedly collected massive amounts of those images and videos on multiple media storage devices (computers, thumb drives, etc.). What Dr. Levy did with these images is not yet clear. Local, state and federal law enforcement have begun a large-scale cooperative investigation, and, according to reports, officers have searched Dr. Levy’s home and office, seizing multiple media storage devices pursuant to search warrants issued by Baltimore County and Baltimore City Judges. But in the Dr. Levy case, which involves electronic surveillance and electronic privacy crimes, potential child pornography, voyeurism, and invasion of the privacy of hundreds and hundreds of women, law enforcement faces obstacles far more complex than a physician sexually assaulting one or more patients.

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 Posted on February 26, 2013 in Medical Malpractice

As news continues to unfold about the now-dead Dr. Levy’s alleged use of still cameras and video recording devices to capture surreptitiously his gynecological examinations of potentially hundreds of his patients, the entire Baltimore and Maryland community is reacting to and struggling to understand how an invasion of privacy of this magnitude occurred. In a nutshell:

• Women everywhere are thinking hard about their privacy-and cringing as they visualize what happens when they hop on a gynecological examination table and reveal their most intimate body parts to a medical care provider;
• If interviews with dozens of Dr. Levy’s patients can be taken as representative of the whole, the hundreds and hundreds of women examined by Dr. Levy are experiencing the trauma commonly associated with such an abusive invasion of their sexual privacy and are experiencing emotional distress as they imagine what pictures and videos might exist and whether those videos and images are floating about on the Internet;
• Horrifically, some of Dr. Levy’s teenage patients may be possible victims, raising the question–was Dr. Levy creating child pornography;
• Federal and state law enforcement are working diligently to investigate, gather, sort, catalog and evaluate massive amounts of electronic evidence and identify victims from that evidence;
• Prosecutors are considering what electronic privacy laws, criminal laws, child pornography laws, and medical privacy laws may come into play;
• Johns Hopkins is reaching out to former patients while trying to conduct its own internal investigation and handling a PR crisis; and • Medical malpractice attorneys have rushed to the courthouse filing suits for millions in damages for medical malpractice when not a single victim has yet to be identified, although make no mistake-victims will be identified when there is this much electronic evidence.

The unfolding facts of this case reveal far more complexity, however, than a typical medical malpractice case, and a rush to the courthouse without the full facts only generates more angst and anxiety for all of the patients as they read hyperbolic Complaints, and it potentially impedes the ability of Johns Hopkins, local police and the FBI to sort through the massive amounts of electronic evidence and to identify victims.

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 Posted on February 22, 2013 in Victim's Rights

A number of news organizations are reporting today that lawyers in Baltimore are racing to the courthouse to file lawsuits against Dr. Nikita Levy and Johns Hopkins Hospital. When I heard that, I sadly chuckled. The only thing that these lawyers know now is what the media is reporting. There is no other information available from Dr. Levy’s family, Johns Hopkins, the Baltimore County Police who executed the search warrant, the Baltimore City Police who are leading the investigation or the FBI which is assisting the Baltimore City Police with the forensic evaluation of the electronic evidence.

My firm and I are taking a different approach than rushing to the courthouse; we believe that it is better to conduct a thorough and detailed investigation rather than run the courthouse simply to be the first to file a civil lawsuit. Accordingly, I issued a pre-lawsuit deposition notice and subpoena to Johns Hopkins today seeking to determine what it knows and where documents and other evidence are located. A copy of the Deposition Notice can be found here. While I believe that ultimately a lawsuit is likely in these cases, such a lawsuit should be based upon a through analysis of the facts and not media reports.

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 Posted on February 22, 2013 in Driving Under the Influence

As a Baltimore Maryland DUI/DWI Lawyer, I have handled more than 5,000 DUI cases. I have blogged many times about the new laws that have been passed in recent years, particularly the DUI Per Se law, making it increasingly difficult to get Not Guilty verdicts for clients in these cases. More often than not, if the police have probable cause for the stop, it is a relatively easy matter for prosecutors to prove the balance of their case. particularly if the person submits to a breathalyzer and the result is .08 or greater.

I represented a client in Baltimore County District Court this week whose case proved to be one of the exceptions to the rule. In spite of the fact that she blew a .15 on the PBT at the scene, I secured her not guilty verdicts on each of the alcohol related offenses. Here are the facts:

My client was driving on the inner loop of I695 in Baltimore County one night last summer. She had been at a party most of the day and had consumed some alcohol. The police officer wrote in his report that his attention was drawn to her because she was changing lanes erratically. He conducted and pace of the vehicle and found her to be traveling at 75 MPH in a 55 MPH zone. It was also a work area.

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 Posted on February 19, 2013 in Victim's Rights

Sexual assault and child pornography. These words have thus far been missing from the discussion concerning former Hopkins doctor Nikita A. Levy’s alleged filming of his patients in various states of undress. Dr. Levy’s alleged actions constitute a form of sexual assault against every patient he filmed in this manner. Moreover, Dr. Levy (and potentially others) are guilty of possessing, manufacturing and distributing child pornography to the extent that any of the victims were under age 18.

All who were filmed are victims of sexual assault. Victims of sexual assault have rights which are vitally important for Dr. Levy’s victims to understand. These rights are discussed in detail here. Most significantly, these victims have important privacy interests in the images and video obtained and they have the right to meaningfully participate in any criminal case that may result from the ongoing criminal investigation. Additionally, law enforcement has certain important obligations to these victims throughout the criminal investigation. All these victims may have civil causes of action against Dr. Levy’s estate and others.

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