A recent trip to the Appeal Board led me to write this article. While in attendance on a different matter, I learned of a case where the trial judge awarded a penalty for violation of the Special...

In the case of Estate of Denmark, v Williams , (Pa. Super. April 28, 2015), a three-member panel of the Superior Court reversed a trial court’s entry of summary judgment for a defendant-hospital...

Pennsylvania’s Child Protective Services Law (CPSL) was amended in 2014 to include substantive changes to the requirements for the mandatory reporting of child abuse and neglect. The new law...

Plaintiff Robert Occhifinto (Occhifinto) filed suit against defendant Robert S. Keppler Mason Contractors, LLC (Keppler) and others, seeking damages for alleged defective construction of an...

In Rodriquez v. Kravco Simon Company, A.2d, 2015 Pa. Super. 41 (2015), the Superior Court reversed the trial court’s decision granting summary judgment in favor of the defendant property owner in...

In November 2014, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued the much anticipated opinion of Tincher v. Omega Flex . While the state of product liability law was significantly altered in the...

The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania recently decided a fascinating case, involving what was described as a “frivolous” appeal filed by the claimant. The most stunning element of the decision...

In a May 12, 2014, Memorandum Opinion, the Superior Court affirmed a multi-million dollar verdict in a trucking case where more than one million dollars in punitive damages was awarded. In so...

In response to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision in Vine v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, State Employees’ Retirement Board, 607 Pa. 648; 9 A.3d 1150 (2010), the Pennsylvania legislature...

A little known section of Pennsylvania law, the Driveway Immunity Provision, 35 P.S §7210.502 (b)(4)(i) of the Construction Code Act, and 53 P.S.§10508(6) of the Municipalities Planning Code, may...

The Superior Court, in a non-precedential opinion, recently acknowledged the doctrine of intermediate form indemnity. In Bracken v. Burchick , (October 10, 2014), a general contractor entered into...

Recently the Pennsylvania Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board upheld a case where a claimant who was on his regular shift took a cigarette break while on the premises of the employer and was bitten...

This past November, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued its long-awaited decision in Tincher v. Omega Flex . The court overruled Azzarello v. Black Brothers , yet declined to replace it with the...

The issue of whether the Superior Court erred in applying a blanket prohibition of evidence of a plaintiff’sconsent to surgeries and knowledge of the risks associated with the plaintiff’s...

In Renner v. AT&T (A-71-11) (068744), the petitioner was a telecommuting employee permitted to work from her home three (3) days a week. She worked for AT&T for 25 years. On September 24,...

Under the Pennsylvania Workers’ Compensation Act, an employer’s liability to an employee, legal representative, husband or wife, parents, dependents, next of kin, or anyone otherwise entitled to...

For those who deal in workers’ compensation matters, it is generally thought that a person who is injured while traveling to or from work is not entitled to workers’ compensation benefits. Indeed,...

Simply by being in the workers’ compensation arena allows most everyone involved to have a general understanding of maximum medical improvement (MMI). In Pennsylvania, MMI does not hold as much...

For those of us who practice in the area of professional liability defense, there remains the question of whether to designate a client as an “expert.” This is true whether the defendant is an...

In Pinder v. WCAB (Lucent Technologies), (No. 23 C.D. 2014,) submitted July 18, 2014, the parties were litigating Termination and Review Petitions when the employer requested that the claimant...