 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
James v. Butler12/18/2003
§ 10-104 (c) sues for an amount less than the jurisdictional limit of the District Court and recovers an amount greater than the ad damnum but still within the jurisdictional limit. It could also occur if the amount recovered was more than the jurisdictional limit. Clearly, at least as to that amount that did not exceed the jurisdictional limit, even though above the amount demanded in the ad damnum, post verdict amendment of the ad damnum would be proper.
As here, the situation is quite different when the amount sued for is the District Court jurisdictional limit, the plaintiff has utilized § 10-104 (c) to obtain admission of the medical records and the jury has returned a verdict in excess of the amount prayed. Under these circumstances, there is a clear incompatibility; effect simply cannot be given to both. This is so because, as we have held, § 10-104 permits medical records and bills to be admitted pursuant to the expedited procedure enunciated in § 10-104 (c), but only when the amount in controversy, measured by the amount of damages claimed, does not exceed $25, 000, the jurisdictional limit of the District Court, while Rule 2-341 permits the ad damnum, whatever the amount of damages alleged, to be amended to conform to the amount of the damages that the jury actually found. To permit the amendment of the ad damnum in this, or a similar, case would render § 10-104 completely nugatory; § 10-104 (b) would be deprived of any meaning and would, therefore, be completely ineffective. Moreover, it would have the effect of converting a case that all parties acknowledged to be a proper one for the use of the evidentiary shortcut prescribed by § 10-104 (c) into one in which it would not apply. As the Court of Special Appeals aptly put it:
"The most likely reason for this requirement [ that the evidentiary shortcut apply only to cases in which the amount in controversy does not exceed $25, 000] is the policy decision that, when the defendant is exposed to damages greater than $25,000, the plaintiff should be required to authenticate the records through live testimony. The requirement would fail to serve its purpose, however, if records were introduced at trial under § 10-104 because the plaintiff plead damages of $25,000 or less, but the defendant was exposed to a potential verdict in excess of that amount."
135 Md. App. at 205, 761 A.2d at 1041.
JUDGMENT AFFIRMED, WITH COSTS.
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Maryland Personal Injury Attorneys
Personal Injury Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|