Maryland Law

While we're "Regulating farms with certainty" (March 18) as The Sun editorializes, let's be certain that we hold the University of Maryland Environmental Law Clinic accountable for their own litigation runoff. It's "outrageous" (your word, not mine) when The Sun suggests that law clinics should be immune from punishment for knowingly representing a frivolous lawsuit. Even Gov. Martin O'Malley registered his concern. In November of 2011 he complained about the "ongoing injustice" of the Environmental Law Clinic pursuing "costly litigation of questionable merit.

Dear Mr. Azrael:You stated [in a previous column] that the security deposit [for an apartment] must be kept in a separate bank account for the tenant and returned within 30 days with a 4 percent interest per year.Are you quoting Maryland law?Most banks, including mine (Columbia Bank), consider an account dormant if no new transactions occur during the year, and only have an interest rate of 2.47 percent, yielding 2.50 percent.Do you suggest the security deposit be placed into a 12-month certificate of deposit?

Why doesn't Baltimore's schools CEO need teaching experience, like other superintendents in the state? It was a question on the mind of many education observers last week, after hearing that the city's schools chief is not bound by the same requirements. It was also an issue of confusion for city school officials who, early in the day Tuesday, believed Tisha Edwards, 42 - who will soon become the city's interim schools CEO - would need to apply for a state waiver because while she has been a principal, she has never been a teacher.

The Howard County Council adopted a $923.5 million general fund spending plan Thursday that increases allocations for schools and police while not raising income or property taxes. The council voted 4-1 to approve the budget, roughly $2.7 million higher than the proposal made a month ago by County Executive Ken Ulman. The dissenting vote was cast by Councilman Greg Fox, the council's lone Republican, who criticized spending practices several times during the two-hour session. Fox wrapped up his remarks after the vote with a display of black, pointy wizard hats, each representing a new fund that he said appears suddenly, as if by magic, every year in the budget while some basic needs go unfunded.

The United States is the No. 1 prescriber of MRI scans, expensive radiological procedures used as an alternative to X-rays. This dubious distinction is one reason American health care is so expensive. Maryland is No. 2 in the rate of MRI tests performed in the United States, an even more alarming accomplishment that inflates medical costs for residents and helps keep health-insurance premiums heading steadily upward. A group of Maryland orthopedists and other doctors wants to make sure things stay that way. They're trying to get the state legislature to nullify a Court of Appeals decision that would make them refer MRI and CT scan business to independent radiologists instead of performing scans themselves.

The late Thurgood Marshall was rejected for admission to the University of Maryland School of Law in his hometown of Baltimore, so the oft-told story goes, simply because he was black.The rejection fueled his quest for racial justice and became the stuff of legend, a part of the city's folklore that endures in the nation's history.But increasingly, students of the life of the late U.S. Supreme Court justice are coming to the conclusion that he may not have applied to the Maryland law school.

The company that spent $42 million in a failed attempt to block expanded gambling in Maryland will be the first to introduce table games in the state. Hollywood Casino, owned by Penn National, got preliminary permission Tuesday to operate 20 table games starting March 7 at the facility in Perryville, in Cecil County. Maryland Live, the state's largest casino, plans to offer table games April 11. Crews are working to move thousands of slot machines as the floor is reconfigured to accommodate 122 table games.

State media keep talking about the fiscal cliff as if it will obliterate Maryland's wealth if Congress does not reach a compromise on debt talks. The truth is, cuts are far down the road if they happen, and Maryland will continue to thrive as an extension of Washington's bureaucratic complex. There is an imminent financial crisis in Maryland, however: state debt. According to the nonpartisan nonprofit State Budget Solutions, the total debt of Maryland is almost $82 billion. (www.statebudgetsolutions.org/publications/detail/state-budget-solutions-third-annual-state-debt-report-shows-total-state-debt-over-4-trillion)

The Maryland Court of Appeals granted yesterday a Baltimore woman the right to seek damages for the emotional distress caused by the loss of her pregnancy in a traffic accident, but not for wrongful death of the fetus. The high court took up the issue after a federal judge prohibited jurors from considering the woman's trauma over the lost pregnancy when determining a settlement in her case, saying that this would amount to a wrongful-death claim. The case treads close to the foundation of abortion law - that a fetus that cannot survive outside the womb is not, in effect, a person.

A hunter, a mother and a minister are featured in new advertisements touting Maryland's new gun law, which was signed last week and represents one of the nation's most sweeping pieces of gun-control legislation passed this year. The ads, released in advance, will begin airing on Baltimore-area television stations this week. Produced by proponents of the new gun law, the ads are intended to educate residents about the new law and protect lawmakers who voted for it.  The version to be broadcast nixes lines from earlier scripts that criticized Washington for inaction on gun-control.