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UNITED STATES AUTOMOBILE ASSOCIATION (USAA) v. RITA RILEY, ET AL., Court of Appeals of Maryland, No. 40, September Term, 2005 ( Decision: June 1st, 2006).
Significant Rulings:
1. An expert's response to questions about the estimated time respondent children were initially exposed to lead, where the questions about the children's lead exposure asked for an answer in connection with a specific time frame, were not unreliable because the expert later expanded his testimony to conclude that the children had been injured by any exposure to lead during their tenancy.
2. An expert witness's answers that were responsive to the questions asked, when he later expanded testimony regarding the children's potential exposure to lead, does not mean that the expert's testimony was so contradictory as to be unreliable.
3. The Maryland Court of Appeals' precedent case of Chantel Assocs. v. Mt. Vernon Fire Ins. Co., 338 Md. 131, 656 A. 2d 779 (1995), is dispositive of the instant case because the definition of : bodily injury" is identical to that in Chantel and as such, bodily injury can be said to mean any localized abnormal condition of the living body.
4. Even assuming, arguendo, that an expert contradicted an earlier statement he made about injuries due to lead exposure, the seemingly contradictory statement is a matter for resolution by the trier of fact, and not the judge ruling on summary judgment.
5. It would be in the interests of justice to allow the trial court to consider, on remand, recent research that supports the expert witness' testimony, and demonstrates that lead levels below the limit set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are disproportionately injurious, causing more harm up to the limit than beyond.
6. Where the application of a limit-of-liability provision in each of four liability policies issued by the same insurer was at issue, ambiguity existed where the policy did not reference the effect of subsequent policies on the limit of liability clause, and the plain language of the policies could lead a reasonably prudent person to read the policies to mean that each separate policy is implicated by a continuing occurrence, while the insurer argues that the liability coverage is limited to a single per occurrence limit when bodily injury spans more than one policy period.
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