A Maryland medical malpractice jury found in favor of the plaintiffs in a medical malpractice wrongful death case, finding that one defendant doctor, who was white, was not negligent, and that the other defendant doctor, who was black, was negligent and that his negligence led to the patient’s death.
Background Facts
In June 2018, Mr. Jones’s family sued Dr. Aurora, Dr. Kennedy, and their respective employers: Upper Chesapeake Surgical Associates and Harford Memorial Hospital (“HMH,”), alleging that Dr. Aurora and Dr. Kennedy committed medical malpractice when they failed to prevent, diagnose, and treat Mr. Jones’s VTE and fatal pulmonary embolism. The family alleged that Dr. Aurora should have prescribed anticoagulation medication as a prophylaxis against VTE instead of relying on less effective SCDs. As for Dr. Kennedy, the plaintiffs alleged that based on Mr. Jones’s condition following his near-syncopal episode, the relevant standard of care required Dr. Kennedy to perform an in-person examination and to include pulmonary embolism in his differential diagnosis. The family asserted that if Dr. Kennedy had done either, he would have been able to diagnose Mr. Jones’s VTE and administer anticoagulant medication that would have prevented the fatal pulmonary embolism. The eight-day jury trial occurred in February 2023.
On appeal, HMH’s argued that the trial court abused its discretion in ruling against Dr. Kennedy on three evidentiary issues by: (1) preventing testimony about how Dr. Kennedy’s wife’s health condition kept him from traveling; (2) allowing cross examination of Dr. Kennedy about Nurse Askew’s note; and (3) allowing cross examination of Dr. Kennedy about the alleged conversation between Dr. Kennedy and Dr. Aurora concerning the possibility of litigation. HMH asserted that those three errors, standing alone, merit reversal of the trial court’s judgment.
In its February 28, 2025 reported Opinion, the Appellate Court of Maryland stated: “We take HMH’s claim of judicial bias very seriously. Impartiality is what judges do. When a litigant claims that a judge has failed to act with impartiality, particularly in their discretionary evidentiary rulings, our preservation requirements give the litigants and the trial court a chance, as the trial occurs, to examine the claim and the proceedings, to explain, to reconsider, and to move for (and grant or deny) substantial relief. For us, our preservation requirements enable fair and meaningful appellate review of what the trial court did (or did not do) in response to the charge of bias. But as important as these preservation requirements are, HMH did not follow them here.”
“The trial court here is presumed to have acted impartially. Even if HMH’s bias claim is preserved, we see nothing on this record that rebuts this presumption. In the evidentiary rulings and conduct that HMH here challenges, we see no abuse of discretion. Moreover, to the extent that HMH now identifies differences in how the trial court ruled vis-à-vis Dr. Kennedy and Dr. Aurora, the presumption of impartiality means that we presume that those differences resulted from something other than bias. Some of the issues HMH raises here resulted from Dr. Kennedy’s having testified before Dr. Aurora and Appellees’ having lodged more objections during Dr. Kennedy’s testimony than during Dr. Aurora’s. HMH does not challenge the substance of the trial court’s rulings on these objections, only that there were more of them. Surely, the trial court cannot have been expected to somehow even the objections tally simply for the sake of evenness. Ultimately, we cannot conclude here that “a reasonable member of the public knowing all the circumstances would be led to the conclusion that the judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” Reed, 127 Md. App. at 554 (quoting Surratt, 320 Md. at 465). HMH has not shown otherwise. Accordingly, we see no abuse of discretion in the trial court’s denial of HMH’s new trial motion. We affirm.”
Source Harford Memorial Hospital, Inc. v. Josephine Jones, et al., No. 377, September Term.
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