2020 Year in Review: The Quiet Shifts in DMV Injury Law
Nobody will remember 2020 for its appellate opinions. But beneath the year that upended everything, the law of injury in the District, Maryland, and Virginia kept moving — sometimes because of the pandemic, sometimes in spite of it. As the year closes, here are the shifts that will matter to injured people in our region long after the masks come off.
The deadlines that stopped — and mostly restarted
The most unprecedented legal event of 2020 was the region-wide pausing of the statute of limitations. All three jurisdictions tolled filing deadlines when courthouses closed in March, but each did it differently — and where they stand now differs too:
| Jurisdiction | Mechanism | Status as of late December 2020 |
|---|---|---|
| Maryland | Chief Judge Barbera's administrative orders | Tolling ended: clerks' offices reopened July 20; the 126 days of closure (March 16–July 20) do not count against filing deadlines |
| Virginia | Supreme Court of Virginia judicial-emergency orders (Va. Code § 17.1-330) | Statute-of-limitations tolling ran March 16–July 19 (126 days); later orders continued other emergency measures |
| District of Columbia | Court orders under D.C. Code § 11-947 | Tolling still in effect as the public health emergency continues |
If you have an unfiled claim from 2019 or 2020, the arithmetic of your deadline now includes these orders — and it is not arithmetic to do alone. How the tolled days are counted, and which deadlines they reach, will be litigated for years. The safe practice is unchanged: file as if the pandemic never bought you a day.
Maryland adopted Daubert
In Rochkind v. Stevenson, 471 Md. 1 (Aug. 28, 2020), the Court of Appeals of Maryland retired the 42-year-old Frye-Reed test and adopted the Daubert reliability standard for expert testimony. Every Maryland injury trial — every causation dispute, every biomechanics opinion, every economist's projection — now runs through the federal-style gatekeeping framework. We wrote about the change in September: it is neither a plaintiff's defeat nor a defense victory, but it rewards the side whose science is built rigorously from day one.
DC's consumer protection law reached the operating room
In Frankeny v. District Hospital Partners, LP, 225 A.3d 999 (D.C. Feb. 27, 2020), the DC Court of Appeals held that the Consumer Protection Procedures Act fully applies to medical providers — no intent to deceive required, and no "entrepreneurial nexus" limitation — reviving a claim by a patient whose surgery was performed in part by an undisclosed first-year resident. We say it again with justified pride: our partner Jacob Lebowitz argued the appeal. For patients misled about who would treat them, Frankeny opened a second path to accountability alongside traditional malpractice — with treble damages and attorneys' fees on the table.
Virginia pierced police immunity — and put down the phone
January's Cromartie v. Billings, 298 Va. 284 (Jan. 16, 2020), made the Supreme Court of Virginia's position plain: gross negligence pierces an officer's sovereign immunity, and qualified immunity cannot be used to strike well-pleaded § 1983 false-arrest and excessive-force claims before a jury hears them. In a year when police accountability dominated the national conversation, Virginia's contribution came early and from the bench.
And in ten days, on January 1, 2021, Virginia's new hands-free law (Va. Code § 46.2-818.2) takes effect: holding a phone while driving becomes a primary offense. For crash cases, a bright-line safety statute means bright-line negligence arguments.
What didn't change — and should have
A year this disruptive invites the assumption that everything moved. Much did not. The District, Maryland, and Virginia remain the last major holdouts of pure contributory negligence: outside DC's protections for pedestrians, cyclists, and other vulnerable road users, an injured person found even minimally at fault still recovers nothing. Maryland's cap on noneconomic damages continued its modest annual climb, and Virginia's medical malpractice cap ticked up on its statutory schedule — ceilings that operate no matter what a jury finds the harm to be worth. Reform bills on all of these fronts went nowhere in 2020's shortened, virus-dominated legislative sessions. The pandemic changed how courts operate; the doctrines that most often decide our clients' cases survived the year untouched.
The pandemic's longer shadows
Some of 2020's changes are still taking shape. Nursing-home operators are invoking catastrophic-health-emergency immunity in Maryland — a defense with real limits we examined in July. Telehealth became ordinary medicine, carrying the ordinary standard of care with it. And the delivery-app economy put a fleet of under-insured vehicles on our streets, making UM/UIM coverage the most important line on your own auto policy.
What this means for injured people in the District of Columbia — and beyond
2020 taught the region's injury lawyers a compact set of lessons: deadlines can move, so verify every one; science wins cases, so build it early; new defenses (and new immunities) demand close reading, not surrender. Our courthouses will reopen fully. The rights sharpened this year — against negligent hospitals, reckless officers, distracted drivers, and neglectful facilities — will be waiting.
From all of us at Posey Lebowitz: be safe, be well, and here's to a better year.
If you or a loved one has been hurt, call Posey Lebowitz at (202) 524-0123 or send us a message for a free consultation.
Part of our DMV case law archive, compiled in 2026 to reflect the archive of some of the most important decisions in injury law.
Update: The District's tolling continued through March 30, 2021, and a 2024 D.C. Court of Appeals decision later construed the orders as tolling only limitations periods that would have expired during the emergency window — the narrow reading we cautioned about above.