On the Record

On the cover: With their progressive pilot potentially on the chopping block, the OPD’s Neighborhood Defenders in Park Heights are defending not only their clients but their problem-solving approach. Also, Caryn Tamber talks to University of Maryland law professor Danielle Citron about her research into online gender harassment and the law.

In the news: An EPA official says the agency wants more weapons in its arsenal; Maryland’s top court upholds a sex-abuse conviction based on the testimony of a 6-year-old victim; Mike’s Train House is sued for infringement; and an offshoot of the “driving while black” case will be the subject of a rare Court of Special Appeals en banc hearing.

 Also:

• Verdicts & Settlements features the case of an HIV-positive teacher who was fired from his job at a private elementary school in Arnold.

• Before there was “The Power of Nice” or his success as a sports agent, there was the Modern Bar Review Course. In My First/Business, Ron Shapiro reflects on the lessons learned from his initial foray into commerce.

• In Opinion/Commentary, Jack L.B. Gohn weighs in on the narrowing difference between blogs and journalism, while Edward J. Levin points out a key requirement under a Maryland deed of trust: naming an individual as the trustee. 

• Catch up with our Week in Review and the Law Digest, this week with cases from the Maryland Court of Appeals, Court of Special Appeals and the Office of Administrative Hearings.

The Golf Fore Heart charity tournament has grown steadily in its first two years, raising $30,000 in 2007 and $51,000 in 2008. The fundraiser is just hitting its stride, so I was curious as to how the current economy is affecting plans for the third tournament, scheduled for June 17 at Mountain Branch Golf Cub in Joppa. (Proceeds benefit the Society for Heart Attack Prevention and Eradication  — SHAPE – and several local charities.)

Perhaps not surprisingly, the economy “was a worry and has proven to be an issue,” according to JoAnne Zawitoski, the event’s founder. “It’s going to be a challenge this year.”

Zawitoski, of Semmes, Bowen & Semmes, said some people and businesses want to participate but have already exhausted their charity budget – if they had a charity budget at all this year. Others have dropped down a sponsorhip level.

Zawitoski said she and other event organizers will be making “personal appeals” as June 17 draws closer.

“I’m hoping to have as good a turnout as last year,” she said, adding she anticipates the event raising “a little less” than it did in 2008.

Despite the economy, Zawitoski said the cause has made strides. SHAPE helped pass new legislation in Texas that would require insurance companies to pay for heart scans of people at risk for heart disease, and President Barack Obama has made improved preventive care a priority.

“We think this is a good year for heart attack prevention measures in state legislatures,” she said.

Bob Rhudy, Baltimore lawyer/mediator and erstwhile Daily Record columnist, was interviewed on NPR’s “Morning Edition” Monday for a segment on senior mediation. Better yet, he gets the last word in the online version. Read it here, or listen to “Your health: Mediators help families with tough choices of aging.” (Rhudy’s comments start about 2:55 into the 4:41-minute file).

With declining markets and law-firm layoffs in the news, soon-to-be lawyers are wondering about their own job prospects, Caryn Tamber writes. Prospects are looking up, though, for two civil servants who were fired after campaigning for their newly elected boss’s opponent. The Court of Appeals said the workers should not have been booted out of court on summary judgment motions.

In other news:

• The top court reprimanded a long-time lawyer who was “up to the elbows” in work when he received an inquiry from Bar Counsel;
• An engagement letter with one lawyer capped the fees the firm could later charge for work by any of its lawyers;
• A jury rejected claims of abuse at a centuries-old treatment center for disturbed children, but awarded the plaintiff $239,000 for his broken hip from a slip-and-fall;
• The Court of Appeals considered whether a defendant was denied his right to an attorney of his choice when the lawyer he thought he had hired sent his law partner to represent him at trial; and
• Stevenson University’s new mock-trial courtroom made its debut with more bells and whistles than many real courtrooms enjoy.

In Verdicts and Settlements, a jury awarded $300,000 to an Essex woman who was the victim of a botched carpal tunnel syndrome release surgery in September 2004. And in Profiles in Leadership, Brendan Kearney checks in with Stephen J. Nolan, now serving a one-year term as chairman of the American Lung Association.

Read Jim Astrachan’s Legal ADvice column (print only),  Of Service by Joe Surkiewicz; Judge on the Jury by Judge Dennis M. Sweeney, and a letter to the editor.

PLUS — News briefs, On the move, and our Law Digest, this week with 15 cases from the Maryland Court of Appeals and Special Appeals, the Supreme Court and 4th Circuit, and the U.S. District Court.

Divine Mercy Care Pharmacy doesn’t carry condoms. It doesn’t carry birth control pills. Other contraceptives? You guessed it: nope. The morning-after pill? Come on now.

What the Chantilly, Va., pharmacy does carry is the approval of the Catholic Church, as of this morning.

According to the Associated Press, a bishop came to the pharmacy today and blessed it, sprinkling it with holy water.

The AP writes, “Some women’s groups say the pharmacy is part of a troubling trend of denying needed health care services to women.”

What do you think? Is it OK for a pharmacy to refuse to carry certain drugs or over-the-counter products for reasons of conscience? If it is, is the pharmacy morally obligated to proclaim this policy prominently on its front door, voicemail and Web site? (Or should Divine Mercy Care’s name be a big enough clue to keep most contraceptive-seekers away?) Should the pharmacy refer customers elsewhere, or is that not much better, conscience-wise, than filling the prescriptions on the premises?

Law-wise, the Guttmacher Institute has this summary of conscience clauses across the country, and it says that Virginia does not have a law allowing healthcare providers to refuse to fill contraceptive prescriptions.

The Washington Post wrote about the pharmacy a few months back. I wrote a couple of stories a few years ago looking at conscience issues in Maryland.

CARYN TAMBER, Legal Affairs Writer

The children of a woman who died of cancer in June 2005 filed suit last month against her doctors, alleging they neglected to recommend regular screenings that could have led to an earlier diagnosis and saved her life.

True, lawsuits claiming a doctor missed some early indication of what later became a serious or even fatal condition are fairly common. What struck me about this suit is the lead defendant: John Doe, M.D.

It’s also true that the use of “Doe” defendants is common in malpractice cases. But this complaint says Dr. Doe (and his later-named colleague, Dr. Samuel Croff Jr.), “provided primary care and treatment” to the decedent, Barbara Jameson, for nearly a year before she reported to the emergency room in April 2005 with “a massive intra-abdominal cancer.”

Maybe Dr. Doe was a behind-the-scenes type who read the results of imaging tests — the suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, doesn’t say.

In fact, much of what happened here remains unknown as the case is in the early stages of litigation; and there may be a difference between what Jameson knew about the doctors who allegedly treated her for a year and what her children are able to figure out.

Still, if a patient is in the dark about the identity of her primary care physician, might that not foretell more disastrous communication problems down the line?

BRENDAN KEARNEY, Legal Affairs Writer

The following really has little to do with the law, but it involves the one person who makes her own rules: Oprah.

Fran, our office manager in Towson, told me she saw on Oprah’s talk show Tuesday a man with blue skin. And it wasn’t a member of the Blue Man Group or some dude dressed as a Smurf for Halloween.

The man in question was Paul Karason of California, and he was originally on “Oprah” in February. It turns out he began drinking a tonic called colloidal silver more than 15 years ago in solidarity with a friend diagnosed with petroleum poisoning, according to Oprah’s Web site. Karason said he discovered in a matter of days that the drink cured his acid reflux, according the Web site.

Karason then began applying the colloidal silver to damaged skin on his body. After he had used the potion for several months a friend noticed his skin had changed color from white to blue. (I’d like to think if I started to resemble a ripe blueberry, I would recognize it immediately.)

Silver is known to kill bacteria and was at one point a popular antibiotic (PDF), but one potential side-effect of long-term use is argyria, a condition whereby the skin turns silver or blue. (One law firm refers to it as the “disease of the living dead,” because of the ghostly appearance of those who have it and the fact that any exposure to sunlight darkens the hue.)

So that explains Paul Karason’s blue skin. And why the Food and Drug Administration in 1999 said colloidal silver has no medical benefit (PDF), meaning it can be sold as a dietary supplement without making health claims.

No word from the government as to whether silver-tainted products led to this, however.

DANNY JACOBS, Legal Affairs Writer

For some, bringing a medical malpractice lawsuit is the only way to get what they truly want — an apology. However, some hospitals continued to maintain a “deny and defend” policy.

But according to an article in the New York Times today, hospitals and doctors are realizing that by just saying “I’m sorry,” litigation can be avoided or smaller settlements can be reached. (Johns Hopkins is one such institution, the article notes.)

The article states that “Malpractice lawyers say that what often transforms a reasonable patient into an indignant plaintiff is less an error than its concealment, and the victim’s concern that it will happen again.”

Plaintiffs’ lawyers: Do you think that your client would be less likely to bring suit if the doctor admitted the mistake and your client knew the hospital was taking steps to ensure it would not happen again?

Defense lawyers: would you still counsel against a doctor or hospital making such an admission, even if it couldn’t be used at trial?

CHRISTINA DORAN, Assistant Legal Affairs Editor

If you think Maryland’s statewide smoking ban is oppressive, it’s got nothing on this: a Mississippi lawmaker has proposed a bill banning restaurants from serving food to obese people. He says that he was just trying to bring attention to the state’s obesity problem: almost one-third of Mississippi adults are considered obese.

JACKIE SAUTER, Web Editor 

My desk mate just returned from a week-long illness, my Web colleague is out sick today, and to be honest, I’m not feeling that well myself (though maybe it’s the working-on-a-federal-holiday blues?). I think it’d be safe to estimate that one third of my newsroom cohorts are sniffling.

If this sounds like your office, then you might find this piece on germs lurking at the office useful. I never wipe down my cell phone, press the “copy” button with my knuckle, or clean my workstation every day, but with every cough out of my cubicle-mate, I’m inclined to start. Maybe Howie Mandel is on to something.

JACKIE SAUTER, Multimedia Editor