Personal Injury Law

Maryland Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse Editorial

Todd Lamb, executive director of Maryland Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse, and Ellen Valentino write an editorial in the Maryland Daily Record on the apocalypse that would occur if Maryland joined 90% of states in this country and adopted a comparative negligence standard. Essentially, the authors' argument makes two points: (1) comparative negligence should not be adopted by anyone other than the Maryland legislature and (2) comparative negligence would cause great economic hardship for Maryland.

I understand the authors' point that any change in the standard should come from the legislature. I think the majority of the Maryland Court of Appeals will agree with the authors on this. On the other hand, as Judge Bell pointed out in commissioning a study on contributory/comparative negligence, Maryland's contributory negligence rule is a common law rule. Arguably, the legislature's failure to act is not approbation of contributory negligence. Can the court never change a rule because the legislature has not changed it for them? But I'm getting too far afield... I can see arguments on both sides of this issue.

The idea that Maryland's economy is going to suffer from comparative negligence is just plain silly. Maryland, Virginia, Washington D.C., Alabama, and North Carolina are the only jurisdictions in the country that have retained contributory negligence. Has any serious economist - which I define for these purposes as someone who has taken an introductory economics course - suggested that these economies are meaningfully stronger and have lower inflation because of contributory negligence? Please.

Full post as published by Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog on January 14, 2011 (boomark / email).