Posted on July 23, 2024 in Estates, Trusts, Probate & Fiduciary Litigation

In February 2023, Silverman Thompson initiated an action in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County on behalf of its client, a 105-year-old World War II Veteran. 

As alleged in the lawsuit, Silverman Thompson’s client had lived in the same home since 1960, which had been owned by his parents.  Following his father’s death in 1971 (the second of his parents to pass), Silverman Thompson’s client was appointed personal representative of his father’s estate and, under Maryland’s laws of intestacy, was to deed ownership of the home to himself and his five siblings.  

No such deed, however, was ever prepared.  In the decades that followed, all five siblings themselves passed away, while Silverman Thompson’s client continued to live in the home and pay all property taxes, insurance, and utilities.  However, in August 2022 (six weeks after the death of the last of five siblings), one of Silverman Thompson’s client’s nieces sought to re-open the father’s estate, all in an effort to allow legal title of the home to pass to her and certain of her cousins.  Silverman Thompson thus asked the Circuit Court to quiet title alleging, in relevant part, that its client’s five now-deceased siblings all abandoned their equitable interest in the home in the decades following their father’s death.

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 Posted on July 16, 2024 in Criminal Defense

Both criminal and domestic attorneys are frequently confronted with whether domestic violence protective orders or peace orders can be expunged. This is an extremely important question given how readily available court information now is on the internet. Anyone with a computer or even a smart phone can bring up Maryland Judiciary Case Search and find out a person’s entire legal history in seconds. This information is available to potential employers and undoubtedly costs people job opportunities daily.

That is, of course, unless the person has been able to get the court records expunged. Under the criminal code a person is entitled to have any case expunged that resulted in either a nolle prosequi (a dismissal), a stet (inactive), or a not guilty verdict (also called an acquittal). There are exceptions to this general rule such as a situation in which a person has pending charges or seeks to expunge the entry of a probation before judgement and has a subsequent conviction within three years of that entry.

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 Posted on July 15, 2024 in Case Results

July 1-5

County: Montgomery County Circuit Court

Attorney: Eric Bacaj

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 Posted on July 15, 2024 in Case Results

July 1-5

County: Carroll County

Attorney: Patrick Seidel 

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 Posted on July 10, 2024 in Case Results

Case: Anonymous v. Anonymous (Confidential Settlement)
Settlement Date: January, 2012

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 Posted on July 10, 2024 in Case Results

$7,600,000
Defendant’s settlement offer prior to trial: $0.00
Case: Doe v. American Radiology, et al.
Verdict Date: February 8, 2006

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 Posted on July 10, 2024 in Case Results

Case: Jane Doe No. 1, et al. v. The Johns Hopkins Hospital, et al.
Court: Circuit Court for Baltimore City; Case No. 24-C-13-001041
Settlement Date: September 19, 2014

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 Posted on July 08, 2024 in Business Counseling, Litigation & Transactions

Forty years ago, the Supreme Court decided Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense, which gave deference to federal agencies to implement their charging statutes. In its latest term, the Court’s 6-3 decision in Loper Bright Enters. v. Raimondo overturned Chevron and dramatically altered the balance of power between federal agencies and the federal judiciary. 

Chevron implemented a two-step approach for the interpretation of statutes. First, courts determined whether Congress had spoken to the statutory question at issue. If Congress’s intent was clear, that ended the court’s inquiry. But if the statute was ambiguous or silent, Chevron directed courts to defer to the agency’s interpretation of the provision if the agency’s reading was a permissible construction of the statute, regardless of how the court would ultimately interpret it. This two-step approach gave deference to administrative agencies concerning the laws they administer and resulted in the presumption that when Congress left ambiguity in a statute, it would be resolved by the administering agency.

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 Posted on July 01, 2024 in Criminal Defense

This post has been updated to reflect the age of consent in Maryland for 2024. 

"What is the age of sexual consent in Maryland" is a legal question that I am asked quite often. The general rule is that the age at which a young person can legally consent to engage in intercourse, sexual contact, or a sexual act with another person is 16 years. Please see Md. Code Ann., Crim. Law 3-301 for the extensive definitions of sexual contact and sexual act under the statute.

There is an exception to this rule if the older participant is less than four years older than the other. In other words, it may or may not be illegal for a 19-year-old to have sex with a 15-year-old or an 18-year-old to have sex with a 14-year-old, depending upon when the participants’ birthdays occur.

A violation of the statute occurs if the participants’ birthdays are four years or more apart.

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 Posted on July 01, 2024 in Business Counseling, Litigation & Transactions

Many business creditors know that their customers are in financial distress before a bankruptcy filing. In this post, we cover two major issues that creditors must be aware of when a business or individual, perhaps a customer, borrower, or supplier, files a petition for bankruptcy protection: (1) the automatic stay and (2) the proof of claim and its firm deadline.

In football, when the referee blows the whistle, all play must stop and there can be serious penalties for "late hits." You can think of the automatic stay the same way. When a debtor files a voluntary petition to initiate a bankruptcy case in a U.S. Bankruptcy Court, an "automatic stay" goes into effect under 11 U.S.C. § 362(a). In the legal arena, a "stay" means a pause, stop, or freeze. The courts take the automatic stay very seriously.

For example, Judge Michelle Harner of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Maryland explains that "[t]he automatic stay is a core and critical component of the bankruptcy system." In re Siegal, 591 B.R. 609, 621 (Bankr. D. Md. 2018). The automatic stay protects both debtors and creditors. It "provides the debtor with a breathing spell from the harassing actions of creditors, and it protects the interest of all creditors by preventing dismemberment of the debtor’s assets before the debtor can formulate a repayment plan or, in liquidation cases, the court can oversee equitable distribution of the debtor’s assets." In re Schwartz-Tallard, 803 F.3d 1095, 1100 (9th Cir. 2015)). Therefore, "courts scrutinize, and take seriously, alleged violations of the automatic stay." In re Siegal, 591 B.R. at 621. Note that the automatic stay is just that; it is automatic, which means it "operates without the necessity for judicial intervention" and it "remains in force until a federal court either disposes of the case or lifts the stay." See In re Soares, 107 F.3d 969, 975 (1st Cir. 1997) (internal citations to the Bankruptcy Code omitted). This means that the debtor does not need to ask a judge to order an automatic stay.

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