A pedestrian whose leg was amputated after she was hit and dragged by a

Steven F. Marino

mass transit bus has filed a personal injury claim against the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority.

Viorika Meza, who resides in Philadelphia’s Olney section, is suing SEPTA, bus driver Aaron Hughes and others over a Dec. 20, 2011, accident in her neighborhood that ended with the plaintiff being trapped and pinned by a SEPTA bus along Godfrey Avenue.

At around 6:40 in the evening, Hughes was turning the bus left onto Godfrey Avenue from 5^th Street when he struck the plaintiff, who was a pedestrian crossing Godfrey at the time, according to the lawsuit.

As she was crossing the street, Meza, suddenly and without warning, was struck by the New Flyer model SEPTA bus, the suit states, an incident that caused her body to be dragged down the street by the bus and eventually pinned by the vehicle.

Emergency responders worked to free Meza from the weight of the vehicle, and the woman remained conscious during the extrication process, the record shows.

The plaintiff ultimately suffered the amputation of her left leg due to the accident.

The lawsuit says that Meza suffered permanent injury to her bones, cartilages, ligaments, muscles, nerves and tissues of her body, causing her to endure “unrelenting pain and disability.”

Meza has also allegedly suffered physical pain, discomfort, trauma, humiliation, embarrassment, emotional distress, sleeplessness, anxiety, inability to perform simple activities of daily living, depression, hopelessness and despondency.

The complaint says that Meza incurred substantial medical bills due to her injuries, and that she has had to “adjust to the life of a leg amputee,” which, in addition to the emotional toll, may include future monetary expenses.

The other defendants named in the litigation are SEPTA board member Pasquale T. Deon, Sr., SEPTA General Manager Joseph M. Casey, and Rosco Inc., which supplied, distributed or sold the transit bus mirror system being used by the mass transit vehicle at the time of the accident.

The complaint contains counts of negligence, vicarious liability, civil rights violations, municipal liability, supervisor liability, design defect and failure to warn.

On the last claim, the plaintiff alleges that Rosco Inc., the maker of the bus’s mirror, failed to adequately warn people such as the plaintiff that the vertical mounting of the mirror system at or below the driver’s eye level on the driver’s side of transit buses created a high likelihood that pedestrian-bus left turn knock-down accidents present a serious safety risk.

In failing to adopt an alternative design of the mirror system, the suit says, Rosco acted with a “reckless and deliberate indifference” to the safety of the plaintiff.

Meza seeks exemplary damages, costs, attorneys’ fees, interest and delay damages.

The suit was filed on Dec. 6 at U.S. District Court in Philadelphia by attorneys Steven F. Marino and David H. Conroy, of the Philadelphia firm Marino & Conroy.

The federal case number is 2:13-cv-07139-ER.

A judge has entered default judgment in excess of $380,000 against a man who allegedly caused teeth and neck injuries to a bar patron during an apparent sucker punch.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas J. Rueter, of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, said he found in favor of plaintiff Joseph Ruggiero after defendant Torrance Amos, Jr., failed to plead or otherwise defend himself in the case.

Ruggiero filed suit against Amos and others in June of last year, after which the plaintiff moved for default judgment against Amos only in mid-November, the record shows.

A hearing was held on Ruggiero’s default judgment motion last month, and again Amos failed to be a part of the proceeding, according to Rueter’s memorandum, which was filed on Dec. 6.

Default judgment was then entered against Amos in the amount of $386,097, the record shows.

Ruggiero commenced his suit on Sept. 22, 2011, against Amos, as well as The Grog, a Bryn Mawr, Pa. tavern, and bar employees Douglas Shafer, Charles McHugh and Chand Patella.

Ruggiero had gone to The Grog with friends, but ended up leaving following an altercation with Shafer, the bouncer, according to court papers.

The altercation arose when an underage individual who was a member of the plaintiff’s party was denied entry into the establishment.

The complaint says that Shafer ended up pushing the plaintiff onto the pavement outside the bar, after which Shafer attempted to close the door, but was prevented from doing so by Ruggiero’s companions.

The lawsuit goes on to state that Shafer pushed Ruggiero a second time after Ruggiero tried to re-enter the bar and that Ruggiero also threw a punch at the bouncer.

There is a factual dispute in the record, however, with Ruggiero claiming that in addition to pushing him, Shafer punched the plaintiff in the face causing him to suffer teeth injuries.

Following the altercation, Ruggiero and his friends began to walk away, but when they got about a quarter of a block from the tavern, one in a group of individuals who had been following the plaintiff and his companions punched Ruggiero in the face “from behind,” causing the plaintiff to lose several teeth and sustain injuries to his cervical spine, the record shows.

Ruggiero does not allege that any other person hit him in the face that day besides Shafer and Amos.

In his lawsuit, Ruggiero seeks more than $75,000 in compensatory and punitive damages.

He claims he had to have several surgical procedures to fix his teeth and neck.

Ruggiero alleged that unpaid medical bills for services already rendered come to $1,097, while future medical care estimates come in somewhere between $80,000 and $90,000, the record shows.

The plaintiff also alleges that his injuries have impaired his employment prospects and have delayed his goal of obtaining a college degree.

In his memorandum, Rueter wrote that, “the court finds that plaintiff has sustained permanent injuries and suffered substantial pain and suffering resulting from the assault committed by defendant Amos.”

In addition to the $1,097 in past medical expenses, the judge awarded Ruggiero $85,000 for future medical care and $300,000 for pain and suffering.

The judge did not, however, award punitive damages to the plaintiff, “because the compensatory damage award is sufficient to punish defendant Amos and deter others from committing similar acts,” Rueter wrote.

A New York man who is said to be paralyzed from the neck down due to

Robert W. Sink

injuries he sustained after driving home drunk from a northeastern Pennsylvania bar has reportedly reached a $6.6 million settlement in his Dram Shop case against the drinking establishments and a bartender.

Manolin Jason Mercado, 36, of the Bronx, N.Y., filed suit in December 2011 at the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania against Pub 570, bartender Brittany Marie DeBias, and Sticks N Stones Bar and Grill over a May 2, 2010, vehicle accident that ended with the plaintiff suffering paralysis.

The complaint blamed the defendants for over-serving Mercado despite the fact that he was visibly intoxicated.

According to the civil action, DeBias, the Pub 570 bartender, continued to serve Mercado alcohol despite the fact that he was visibly intoxicated and incapable of safe driving.

At the end of her shift, DeBias drove Mercado in Mercado’s vehicle to Sticks N Stones, where the plaintiff continued to drink despite the fact that he had apparently already had enough.

After leaving the second bar at about 9:20 that evening, Mercado drove off the roadway and rolled his vehicle several times, an accident that caused him to sustain severe spinal cord injuries that resulted in paralysis.

The complaint accused the various defendants of negligence and of violating Pennsylvania’s Dram Shop Act, which prohibits drinking establishments from serving visibly intoxicated patrons.

Robert W. Sink, Mercado’s Philadelphia-based attorney, told the Morning Call newspaper in Allentown Wednesday that the $6.6 million settlement represents merely a fraction of the plaintiff’s estimated future medical expenses, which could be as much as $34 million.

Mercado’s lost wages from his job as a doorman and repairman at a New York City apartment building were estimated to be in the neighborhood of $2.8 million, the Morning Call reported.

Sink told the publication that a large portion of the multi-million-dollar settlement would go toward repaying Medicare for medical care costs that Mercado incurred after his insurance lapsed following the car accident.

Sink was quoted in the paper as saying that had the case gone to trial, and Mercado was found 51 percent liable for his own injuries, the man would have been awarded no money under state law.

The court docket shows that defendant Pub 570 was represented by Center Valley, Pa. attorney John P. Hendrzak and Scranton, Pa. attorney Zygmunt R. Bialkowski, Jr.

Lawyer Richard B. Wickersham, Jr., of the Philadelphia firm Post & Schell, represented DeBias, the bartender, while Sticks N Stones was represented by Philadelphia attorney Michael H. Malin, Jr.

The docket shows that Sink made the court aware of a proposed settlement in the case back in late September.

Sink’s letter, which said the settlement was reached with the assistance of mediator Thomas Helbig, did not contain a dollar amount.

Sink did not immediately return an emailed message from the Pennsylvania Record Wednesday evening seeking to confirm the settlement amount.

Sometimes lawyers are flowery courtroom orators.

Other times they’re more like risk assessors.

In late September, it was the latter.

When John Hendrzak sat down at the mediation table with an attorney representing a bar patron who was suing two liquor establishments for over-serving him prior to a single-vehicle crash, he had a feeling how the case might turn out.

The plaintiff, Joseph Mercado, was left a quadriplegic from the accident.

He can only get around by blowing into a tube that propels his motorized wheelchair.

Considering that Mercado’s legal team was asserting more than $37 million in lifetime medical expenses from the get-go, Hendrzak, in-house counsel representing an insurance company for defendant Pub 570, had a feeling the case would never see the inside of a courtroom.

And he was right.

This week, it was announced that the parties had reached a $6.6 million settlement in the case, which pitted Mercado against Pub 570, one of its bartender’s, and another business called Sticks N Stones Bar and Grill.

From a legal standpoint, quadriplegic cases generally don’t go to trial in the Keystone State, Hendrzak said in a phone interview Thursday.

The reason – “it’s too big a risk on both sides,” Hendrzak said.

Pennsylvania’s comparative negligence statute is written in such a way that if a plaintiff is found more than half liable for his or her own injuries, they are awarded zero dollars.

While Mercado took it upon himself to drive drunk, he still asserted that bartenders should have known he was legally intoxicated and thus should not have continued serving him drinks before he got behind the wheel of his vehicle.

Mercado, 36, a resident of the Bronx, N.Y., filed suit against Pub 570 and Sticks N Stones over the May 2, 2010 accident, that left the plaintiff completely paralyzed from the neck down.

In his complaint, Mercado said the Pub 570 bartender, Marie DeBias, drove Mercado in Mercado’s vehicle to Sticks N Stones, and then left him there.

Mercado ended up imbibing more while at the second bar – both establishments are located in East Stroudsburg, Pa. – and when he left, he wound up driving his car off the road and flipping the vehicle several times.

In depositions, Hendrzak said there were discrepancies with regard to how much Mercado had to drink that night, and whether or not he was capable of driving home.

“This was a very contested liability case with over 40 depositions,” the attorney said.

If Mercado ended up dying in the accident, or if the man’s injuries were less severe, the suit would have likely gone to trial on contested liability, Hendrzak said.

If this was a death case, “our damages would have been capped, we would have tried this in a heartbeat,” he said.

But because the plaintiff was left a quadriplegic due to the crash, and is facing a lifetime of medical costs, it was fairly obvious to both sides that a settlement was the way to go.

“When you’re talking high stakes poker, it’s risk analysis,” Hendrzak said.

All of the settlement dollars came from insurance, Hendrzak said, and DeBias, the Pub 570 bartender, was on the hook for nothing, since she was covered by her employer’s policy.

Mercado’s Philadelphia-based attorney, Robert W. Sink, surely realized that if a jury determined his client was liable for just 51 percent of his own injuries, the man wouldn’t see a dime, Hendrzak said, making a settlement more attractive.

Sink, who could not be reached for comment, told the Morning Call newspaper in Allentown this week that a large portion of the settlement funds would go toward repaying Medicare for medical costs that Mercado incurred after his insurance lapsed following the vehicle accident.

Hendrzak gave a shout-out to the mediator in the case, attorney Tom Helbig, who he said did a “phenomenal job” representing all sides.

Hendrzak also commended the other lawyers for their professionalism in what was a very difficult, and trying, case.

“It was highly contested,” Hendrzak said. “It was very professionally handled on all sides.”

Mediation itself, which occurred in late September took a full, eight-hour day, Hendrzak said.

In the end, all sides appeared to be pleased with the outcome, he said.

“We’re satisfied [with] the settlement,” Hendrzak said.

Hendrzak said Pub 570’s excess insurer, Zurich, was on the hook for most of the settlement money, about $5.65 million, while Sticks N Stones agreed to pay $950,000.

A breakdown of comparative negligence statues on the website of the law firm Saxe Doernberger & Vita P.C., shows that Pennsylvania employs what is known as the “50 Percent” rule, which says a plaintiff can recover if he or she is 50 percent liable for his or her injuries, but not if that percentage is 51 percent or more.

Other states have what is called “Pure” negligence, which is when a plaintiff can recover the percentage of damages caused by the defendant no matter how much the plaintiff was at fault.

Washington, D.C., Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia have no law regarding comparative negligence, according to the law firm.

Medical device manufacturer Coloplast Corporation has filed a petition to transfer a

Joseph Bongiovanni

products liability case initiated by a Philadelphia man who claims he sustained injuries due to a defective penile implant device to U.S. District Court.

The complaint, originally filed in late May at the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas on behalf of John Starks, contends that the defendant placed into the stream of commerce a defective and malfunctioning Coloplast Titan OTR Inflatable Penile Implant.

Starks, who is being represented by Philadelphia lawyer Jerry Lyons, of Joseph Chaiken & Associates, claims in the litigation that the device he had surgically implanted into his body on March 15, 2010, eventually stopped working, became defective, malfunctioned, failed, leaked and otherwise would not operate properly.

The malfunction caused the plaintiff to have to undergo a second surgery on March 20 of last year to remove the defective product and have another penile device implanted in its place.

Starks alleges the ordeal caused him to sustain additional scar tissue, pain and suffering, additional medical costs, impairments of bodily functions, loss of life’s pleasures including the ability to engage in sexual activity, embarrassment and humiliation, and post-surgical pain.

The suit contains counts of negligence, strict products liability, breach of contract and breach of warranties.

Starks seeks more than $75,000 in damages, plus interest and costs.

In the petition to transfer the case out of Philadelphia’s Common Pleas Court, Coloplast’s lawyer, Joseph N. Bongiovanni, IV, of the Philadelphia firm Marks, O’Neill, O’Brien, Doherty & Kelly, wrote that the Eastern District of Pennsylvania is the appropriate venue in which the litigation should play out because the amount of monetary damages sought by Starks would automatically trigger federal court jurisdiction.

In Pennsylvania, $50,000 is the jurisdictional limit at the state trial court level.

The defense lawyer also points out that Coloplast does not do business in Pennsylvania, but rather is headquartered in the State of Minnesota.

U.S. District Court, Bongiovanni wrote, should have original jurisdiction over the Starks case due to the fact that there is diversity in citizenship between the parties.

The defense has already provided written notice to plaintiff’s counsel of the removal petition, the filing states.

According to its website, Coloplast is a global business that develops and manufactures products relating to ostomy care, surgical urology, continence care, and wound and skin care.

The company employs more than 7,000 people worldwide, according to the site.

The federal case number is 2:13-cv-03872-MAM.

A Philadelphia attorney representing a trucking agency and a commercial

Jay Barry Harris

driver embroiled in a vehicle accident case brought by a central Pennsylvania couple has moved to transfer the litigation out of state court and into a federal venue.

Attorney Jay Barry Harris, of the Philadelphia law firm Fineman Krekstein & Harris, filed a removal notice at the federal courthouse in Harrisburg this week seeking to have a U.S. District Court judge take up jurisdiction in a case brought by Nedal Morad and her husband, Ashraf Musleh.

The couple is suing Old Dominion Freight Line Inc. and driver Michael Maxwell over a Sept. 1, 2011, accident along Interstate 81.

The lawsuit, filed earlier this month by Harrisburg attorney Matthew L. Owens, says that Morad was driving along the highway near mile marker 57.2 when Maxwell, of Waco, Texas, rear-ended the woman’s vehicle, causing the plaintiff to sustain serious back injuries.

Morad claims she suffered both cervical and lumbar spine injuries that required medical treatment and physical therapy.

The plaintiff alleges she incurred medical expenses to treat her injuries, and that she suffered from mental anxiety and nervousness as a result of the crash.

The lawsuit accuses Maxwell of failing to maintain a safe speed, failing to keep a safe following distance, failing to properly look out for other vehicles operating on the roadway, and failing to be “highly vigilant.”

Morad acted with due care and was not liable for contributory or comparative negligence, the complaint says.

Old Dominion Freight Lines, Maxwell’s employer, is vicariously liable for the accident and Morad’s injuries because Maxwell was operating the company’s vehicle at the time and was a “permissive driver in the course and scope of his employment at the time the accident occurred.”

Old Dominion stands accused of failing to properly train drivers, failing to monitor drivers’ behavior and driving habits, failing to properly screen and hire drivers, and failing to adhere to and comply with general state and local vehicle operating ordinances.

The plaintiffs seek damages for pain and suffering; past and future embarrassment, humiliation and mental anxiety; past and future incidental costs; loss of life’s enjoyment and pleasures; earnings losses; and for Morad’s limited range of motion.

In his removal notice, defense attorney Harris wrote that the matter belongs in the federal court system because the action is between citizens of different states.

Harris also maintains that despite the plaintiffs’ contention that the damages will hover around $50,000, the reality is that damages would likely exceed $75,000, which would trigger U.S. District Court oversight.

The federal case number is 1:13-cv-03008-SHR.

A Pittsburgh firefighter, husband, and father of two is suing the National

Jason E. Luckasevic

Collegiate Athletic Association over allegations that the organization failed to warn him about the dangers of concussions sustained during on-the-field play.

Matthew Onyshko, 32, who has two young children with his wife, Jessica, a co-plaintiff in the litigation, accuses the NCAA of failing to take effective action to protect him from the long-term effects of concussions and sub-concussive blows to the head while he played college football at California University of Pennsylvania from 1999 to 2003.

The complaint, which was filed by attorney Jason E. Luckasevic, of the Pittsburgh firm Goldberg, Persky & White, says that the NCAA breached its duty to protect Onyshko “in the face of long-standing and overwhelming evidence regarding the need to do so.”

“The NCAA failed to educate its football-playing athletes, like Onyshko, on the long-term, life-altering risks and consequences of head trauma in football,” the lawsuit reads. “They failed to establish known protocols to prevent, mitigate, monitor, diagnose, and treat neurological disorders.”

The athletic association, the plaintiff claims, failed to address and/or correct the coaching of tackling or playing methodologies that cause head injuries, and it failed to educate coaches, trainers and student-athletes as to the symptoms indicating possible concussions.

“The NCAA engaged in a long-established pattern of negligence and inaction with respect to concussions and concussion-related maladies sustained by student-athletes,” the complaint states.

Onyshko, the suit says, experienced many repeated blows to the head during his collegiate football career.

On three occasions in particular, he lost consciousness for at least 30 seconds.

After he graduated, the Pittsburgh man began to experience headaches, numbness, twitching, muscle atrophy, fatigue, loss of mobility, slurred speech, difficulty swallowing, weakness and other neurological symptoms, the lawsuit states.

And just recently, Onyshko was diagnosed with a progressive brain and spinal cord injury with “ALS-like symptoms” said to be caused by repeated head trauma during his college football career.

The complaint states that medical science has known for decades that “repetitive and violent jarring” of the head or impact to the head can cause what is known as Mild Trauma Brain Injury with a heightened risk of long-term, chronic neuro-cognitive maladies.

The NCAA has known or should have known for many years that collegiate football players and their families, including Onyshko, were unaware of the serious risk posed to the players’ long-term cognitive health caused by repeated head impacts while playing football, the complaint reads.

“From its inception, the NCAA had a duty to protect football players like the Plaintiff from health and safety risks,” the suit states. “The NCAA held itself out as acting in the [sic] Onyshko’s best interests. Plaintiff relied on the NCAA to disclose relevant risk information and protect his health and safety.”

The civil action accuses the NCAA of negligence for failing to protect the plaintiff’s health and safety.

“The NCAA knew or should have known that its actions or inaction in light of the rate and extent of concussions reported and made known to the NCAA would cause harm to the Plaintiff in both the short and long term” the complaint reads.

Jessica Onyshko, the plaintiff’s wife, has a loss of consortium claim in the litigation that says she has suffered the loss of her spouse’s support, society, services and companionship due to his injuries, and that she, too, has had to spend money on medical care relating to her husband’s treatment.

The couple seeks more than $75,000 in damages, along with interest and costs.

The complaint was filed nearly four months after thousands of former professional football players and the National Football League agreed to a $765 million proposed settlement in multidistrict concussion litigation that had been playing out at the federal courthouse in Philadelphia.

The federal case number is 2:13-cv-01791-CRE.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court this week allowed a multi-million dollar

Pa. Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille

punitive damages award to stand in a case against Wyeth Pharmaceuticals brought by an out-of-state woman who says she developed breast cancer as a result of taking the hormone replacement therapy drug Prempro.

In a one-sentence per curiam order filed Dec. 16, the high court dismissed the defendant’s final appeal as having been improvidently granted.

Allocatur, the justices said, should never have been Ok’d.

Arkansas residents Mary Daniel and Thomas Daniel, Sr., filed suit at Philadelphia’s Common Pleas Court in late June 2004 alleging that Mary developed breast cancer in August 2001 after having taken the HRT drug for two years.

The woman ended up having to undergo surgery and chemotherapy to treat her disease, the record shows.

The couple sued Wyeth for negligence, breach of express warranty, fraud and loss of consortium.

Records show that a Philadelphia jury awarded the plaintiffs $1,681,650 in compensatory damages following a four-week trial in January 2007.

Punitive damages were also awarded at trial, but the judge ordered the dollar figure to remain under seal, according to the court docket at the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas.

Jurors determined that Wyeth negligently failed to warn Mary’s physician of the risks of breast cancer while taking Prempro, the record shows.

The jury also concluded that Prempro was a factual cause of Mary’s breast cancer.

Later that year, Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Allan Tereshko granted a post-trial motion by Wyeth seeking judgment notwithstanding the verdict because an expert witness retained by the plaintiffs had recanted his testimony on causation during a deposition he gave in another HRT case against Wyeth, the record shows.

“The fact that the jury did not have an opportunity to hear the Zandi testimony was significant in that it likely would have resulted in a defense verdict because Daniel failed to prove, more likely than not, Prempro caused her cancer,” Tereshko wrote in his Sept. 24, 2008 opinion, referring to the case of Zandi v. Wyeth.

In May 2011, the court docket shows, then-Common Pleas Court Judge Sandra Mazer Moss ordered that the record be unsealed, and the amount of punitive damages reported.

Bloomberg News subsequently quoted a plaintiff’s attorney in the case as saying that punitive damages were in the neighborhood of $8.6 million, making the overall verdict more than $10 million.

In 2011, the Pennsylvania Superior Court, a lower-tier appellate body, reversed the trial court’s ruling scrapping the jury verdict and ordered Wyeth to pay the more than $10 million in damages to Daniel, records show.

The Superior Court judges had determined that no fraud on the court took place  and that a new trial should never have been granted.

Wyeth Pharmaceuticals was bought by drugmaker Pfizer in 2009.

Spokesmen for Pfizer did not return a message seeking comment.

There are signals that there may be some roadblocks in the proposed

Law Professor John Banzhaf

settlement that was unveiled nearly four months ago in the multidistrict concussion litigation against the National Football League.

For one thing, talk has surfaced regarding possible “double dipping” by attorneys who have been representing former professional football players who say the NFL actively withheld information on the long-term health risks associated with concussions players sustained while on the field.

More than 4,500 former players and their respective spouses have been suing the league for close to two years now.

U.S. District Judge Anita Brody, who oversaw the litigation, which had been consolidated in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, has yet to formally approve the preliminary $765 million settlement, which means she has also yet to weigh in on the issue of legal fees.

On Dec. 16, Brody appointed Perry Golkin as a special master to assist her in evaluating the financial aspects of the proposed settlement, according to the case docket.

The judge wrote in her order that the appointment is warranted by the “expected financial complexity of the proposed settlement.”

Golkin is reportedly investigating allegations of “double dipping” on the part of some plaintiffs’ attorneys, according to Darren Heitner, a partner at Wolfe Law Miami who contributes news articles to Forbes.

In this case, double dipping refers to lawyers getting paid through a common fund set up to compensate them for their work on the litigation, and also through contingency fees with individual player-plaintiffs.

ESPN’s Outside the Lines blog reported this week that the allegation arose when Christopher Seeger, who served as the player-plaintiffs’ lead negotiator in the MDL, attempted to arrange an agreement whereby he would receive 10 percent of any monetary damages awarded to 79-year-old former NFL player Billy Kinard.

Seeger, a lawyer with the firm Seeger Weiss, stands to receive a large portion of the common fund that was created to cover attorneys’ fees in the litigation, Outside the Lines reported.

The fund could reportedly reach $100 million, and is separate money not attached to the $765, which is specifically designated for the injured players.

Outside the Lines reported that Seeger quickly withdrew his proposal for the 10 percent from Kinard after Kindard’s attorney challenged the proposed arrangement.

Seeger, one of a handful of lawyers on an executive committee designed to negotiate with the league, could not be reached for comment.

In the Outside the Lines article, Seeger was quoted as saying that he is not representing any new plaintiffs on a fee arrangement.

“A small number of plaintiffs were mistakenly offered a retainer agreement after approaching Seeger Weiss for representation post-announcement,” Seeger said in a statement provided to the website.

John Banzhaf, III, a professor of public interest law at George Washington University Law School in Washington, D.C., said while Golkin, the special master, was likely appointed due to the double dipping allegations, he could have also been brought aboard to help Brody, the judge, assess other financial issues in the complex litigation.

Banzhaf said if Golkin comes back a couple months down the road with a report critical of the settlement, Brody could be pressured to send back the settlement with instructions that it be revised.

At this point, the settlement could be left intact, delayed or defeated all together, he said.

Banzhaf said contingency fee arrangements, in the traditional sense, are not inherently bad, but this situation is slightly different because there is already a pot of cash being set aside for lawyers who worked on the MDL.

“Generally this is reasonable, fair and often very effective,” Banzhaf, by phone, said on traditional contingency fee situations.

In many cases, the system works out for clients who have little money to spend on lawyers in cases involving, say, a motor vehicle accident or other type of injury, he said.

Under that contingency fee system, a lawyer typically takes about a third of the money recovered by a plaintiff in any given tort case.

But in the high-stakes NFL litigation, the common fund that was set up was designated as the pool from which attorneys are supposed to get paid.

In the Outside the Lines article, Sam Franklin, an attorney representing Kinard, the former player, said that after reviewing the fee agreement he became concerned that Seeger, the attorney on the executive committee, was attempting to take money from his client on top of the money he would get from the common fund.

“That’s what’s wrong: It’s double-dipping, getting paid by the defendant and getting an additional 10 percent by each client you sign up,” Franklin was quoted as saying in the ESPN article. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

In a letter to Seeger, according to the article, Franklin asked: “On what basis do you believe your firm at this stage can propose an engagement to represent class members in seeking benefits from the claims process, including a fee of 10 percent plus a share of ‘common expenses?”

In a return email, according to Outside the Lines, Seeger admitted that his firm had agreed to represent Kinard for “the reduced fee of 10 percent,” adding that “we absolutely reject your suggestions and assumptions of anything inappropriate,” and “will not be executing a retainer with your client, Mr. Kinard.”

Seeger apparently offered to represent Kinard free of charge at this point, but that offer was rebuffed.

In his interview, Banzhaf said if a former player in the NFL litigation signs a contingency fee agreement with an attorney, that attorney is getting “a lot of money he never earned,” if the lawyer was involved with numerous players at once.

The players, in turn, would get arguably less than they are entitled to, the professor said.

Meanwhile, the settlement approval process moves forward.

It is not yet clear when Brody would rule on the proposed settlement.

What is certain is that’s she’ll wait to weigh in until the financial report by her special master is completed.

At this point, there’s no telling how long that process could take.

An amputee who served in Vietnam who sued the makers of a wheelchair

Sayde Joy Ladov

lift back in September over claims that he sustained injuries after falling from the device has now added the United States government to his list of those he blames for the accident.

Philadelphia resident Ronald Smiley who, along with his wife, Marilyn, sued New Jersey-based Artisan Builders and The Wheelchair Man Company earlier this fall, filed a separate complaint on Dec. 18 against the federal government over a Sept. 23, 2011, incident that occurred outside of his home.

At the time, Ronald Smiley, who requires the use of a motorized wheelchair because he lost his left leg during the Vietnam Conflict, rode his scooter onto the lift manufactured and installed by The Wheelchair Man and Artisan respectively when the locking mechanism on the device failed to engage, causing the plaintiff and his scooter to fall approximately 12 feet to the street below.

As a result of his fall, Smiley says he sustained various injuries to the discs in his neck that required medical treatment.

The plaintiff also claims that he has been unable to attend to his daily chores and activities as a result of the incident.

The latest complaint is being brought against the U.S. Government under the Federal Tort Claims Act because the Department of Veterans Affairs was responsible for purchasing the wheelchair lift for Smiley from The Wheelchair Man.

The plaintiff, the complaint says, would make “various applications to defendant for items needed to assist in ambulation and defendant would designate various providers for plaintiff to use relative to his needs.”

The company that installed the lift at Smiley’s Philadelphia home was Artisan Builders and Elevators.

The latest complaint accuses the government of negligence for failing to properly investigate whether Artisan could properly install the lift, failing to properly inspect and maintain the lift, failing to advise Artisan that the lift should not be modified, failing to oversee all individuals who rendered services to plaintiff, and failing to provide and maintain in good working condition the lift in question.

In the September lawsuit, Smiley and his wife accused the two companies of failing to properly install the lift, modifying the lift against the instructions of the manufacturer, and failing to properly install, inspect, maintain and repair the lift.

The previous suit seeks more than $150,000 in damages against the two companies while the latest complaint seeks the same amount of damages against the government.

Both lawsuits were filed by Philadelphia attorney Sayde J. Ladov of the firm Dolchin, Slotkin & Todd.

The federal case number is 2:13-cv-07411-CDJ.

A suburban Philadelphia man is suing a Maryland business over claims he sustained head injuries and completely lost his sense of smell following a chain reaction accident triggered by items that fell off of the back of a landscaping truck.

Martin Blum, who lives in Jenkintown, Montgomery County, filed suit in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia on Dec. 18 against Joppa, MD-based Akehurst Landscaping Services Inc. over an incident that took place on Jan. 16, 2012, near mile marker 70 on Interstate 95 in Baltimore County, Maryland.

Blum was driving his car southbound along the highway, on his way to a business meeting in North Carolina, when a truck driven by Michael Buell, an employee of the defendant, lost its cargo, an act that caused a multiple car collision along the roadway, according to the complaint.

The lawsuit says that the defendant failed to adequately secure its load of wheelbarrows and other landscaping tools, causing the items to be ejected from the bed of the truck and land on the highway, which triggered the multi-vehicle accident.

The plaintiff alleges he was seriously injured as a result of the incident.

He says he sustained a cerebral concussion, post-concussion syndrome, and vertigo, as well as a complete loss of the sense of smell, as well as other physical and emotional injuries.

The plaintiff claims he sustained earnings losses due to his inability to work following the accident.

Blum seeks more than $75,000 in damages.

He is being represented by Philadelphia attorney Richard K. Hohn of the firm Hohn & Scheuerle.

The federal case number is 2:13-cv-07410-TON.

A Philadelphia Common Pleas Court judge has overruled defense

Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Frederica A. Massiah-Jackson

preliminary objections in a personal injury case against Hatfield Quality Meats and others.

Judge Frederica Massiah-Jackson, in a Dec. 18 order, ruled that James C. Levering’s case against the food processing company can play out in Philadelphia County Court, despite objections that had been lobbed by the defendants that venue was improper.

Levering is suing Hatfield, Clemens Food Group, Pleasant Valley Packing, Clemens Family Corp. and others over a June 9, 2012, incident in which the plaintiff, who was a business invitee at the Clemens Food Group processing plant in Hatfield, Montgomery County, crushed his hand while operating the defendants’ elevator.

The defendants subsequently filed objections asserting that the matter should be transferred to the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas because it would be more convenient for the parties involved, the record shows.

The defendants, however, were unable to persuade Massiah-Jackson during a Dec. 6 hearing as to why the litigation should be sent out of Philadelphia.

“The Hatfield Defendants were not able to demonstrate by detailed averments, affidavits or argument why Philadelphia is vexatious or burdensome,” the judge wrote.

Citing appellate court precedent, Massiah-Jackson wrote that there is a “vast difference” between inconvenience and oppressiveness, and traveling from Montgomery County to Philadelphia for the case is not a hardship.

The defendants had also argued that they do not regularly conduct business in Philadelphia, but supplemental discovery and exhibits “make it clear that these Hatfield Defendants successfully and strategically market themselves by providing Philadelphia services, Philadelphia foods and regularly engage in Philadelphia business,” the judge wrote.

One example the judge offered was the Hatfield Quality Meats Partnership Agreement with the Philadelphia Phillies for 2010 through 2016 that provides the defendants with exclusive rights to the hot dog concessions at Citizens Bank Park in South Philadelphia.

Massiah-Jackson went on to write that when deciding whether a corporation regularly conducts business in a county, a court makes an assessment both as to quality and quantity of contacts.

In this case, the defendants send sales representatives to Philadelphia at least once a month.

Furthermore, she wrote, Clemens Food Group submitted documents that show nearly $3 million in sales in 2010, 2011 and 2012 to Philadelphia wholesalers, and nearly $6 million in annual sales to Sysco’s Philadelphia location for distribution in the tri-state, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware area.

“The defendants vigorously suggest that $9 million of annual Philadelphia business is but a fraction of their nearly $1 billion annual gross sales, thus, rendering venue improper in Philadelphia,” Massiah Jackson wrote. “Under the circumstances presented, this Court does not agree.

“Venue is triggered when there is a continuous, although small amount of business activity with Philadelphia,” the judge continued. “A corporation may engage ‘regularly’ even though the acts make up a small part of the total activity and enterprise.”

A federal judge in Philadelphia has agreed to send back to state court a personal injury

U.S. District Judge Jan DuBois

lawsuit initiated by a Pennsylvania man who claims he sustained serious injuries when a heavy mounted crane fell onto his shoulder and back while he was working.

The complaint asserts negligence claims against AMERCO, U-Haul International Inc., U-Haul Co. of Pennsylvania and Falls Manufacturing Co.

The record shows that plaintiff Eldridge Salley filed a motion with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to remand the case to Philadelphia’s Common Pleas Court on the grounds that complete diversity was not present between the parties.

AMERCO simultaneously moved to dismiss the claims against it for lack of personal jurisdiction while U-Haul Co. of Pennsylvania and Falls Manufacturing Co. sought to dismiss the entire complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, or alternatively for a more definite statement.

In his July 15 ruling, U.S. District Judge Jan E. DuBois granted the plaintiff’s motion to remand the case to Philadelphia County, although the jurist denied Salley’s petition seeking litigation fees and expenses.

Because the judge remanded the civil action, he refused to rule on the defendants’ motions to dismiss.

The lawsuit involves claims that Salley suffered spinal fractures, bone fragments, and a permanent deformity of the spine after the piece of heavy equipment fell on top of him at a location owned and operated by the defendants in Fairless Hills, Bucks County.

The plaintiff initially filed his suit in Philadelphia’s Common Pleas Court on Feb. 1, but U-Haul International subsequently filed a removal notice seeking to transfer the litigation to U.S. District Court, with U-Haul’s lawyers arguing that the matter belongs in a federal jurisdiction due to diversity in citizenship among the parties.

AMERCO and U-Haul International are based in Nevada and Arizona respectively.

U-Haul Co. of Pennsylvania, however, has its principal place of business in the Keystone State, as does Falls Manufacturing Co., a division of that company.

The two defendants argued that removal to federal court was proper because they claim they were fraudulently joined to the litigation, the record shows.

In court papers, U-Haul argued that the Pennsylvania defendants were Salley’s statutory employers under the Pennsylvania Workmen’s Compensation Act, and because of this they are liable only as outlined in the PWCA.

Therefore, U-Haul argued, the Pennsylvania defendants are immune from suit in the negligence action because Salley lacks a colorable claim against them, hence the fraudulent joinder contention.

U-Haul conceded that Salley was on paper an employee of Centrix Staffing, a temporary staffing agency, but nevertheless argued that pursuant to the “borrowed servant” doctrine that the Pennsylvania defendants were Salley’s statutory employers, the judicial memorandum shows.

In support of this claim, U-Haul submitted an affidavit by William Hawthorne, the president of Falls Manufacturing Co., which is owned by U-Haul Co. of Pennsylvania, and which stated that the company provided Salley with daily job assignments, and that U-Haul, not Centrix Staffing, controlled the welding work that was performed by Salley.

Salley, however, in his own affidavit, contended that during his employment, “nobody on the job controlled the manner in which I performed mig welding as an independent contractor.”

Salley also claims he was never given U-Haul attire and had to use his own tools at his job site.

The judge ultimately determined that given the facts of the case, it appears that the Pennsylvania defendants were not Salley’s statutory employers, and therefore could be held potentially liable in the civil action.

“Salley’s claims against the Pennsylvania defendants are not ‘wholly insubstantial and frivolous,’ and ‘there is a possibility that a state court would find that the complaint states a cause of action’ against the Pennsylvania defendants,” DuBois wrote in his memorandum. “Thus, the Court concludes that joinder of the Pennsylvania defendants was proper and that subject matter jurisdiction is lacking due to the absence of complete diversity of citizenship.”

At the same time, DuBois denied Salley’s motion for fees and expenses, writing that while the court rejected the defense’s fraudulent joinder argument, the court cannot say that U-Haul lacked an “objectively reasonable basis for removal” due to the disputed nature of the facts as alleged in the case.

Court records show that Salley is being represented by Philadelphia lawyer Justin Bieber.

Richard B. Wickersham, Jr., of the Philadelphia firm Post & Schell, P.C., appears to be representing the U-Haul defendants and Falls Manufacturing Co. in the case, while fellow Post & Schell lawyer Karyn Dobroskey Rienzi seems to be representing AMERCO, the court docket shows.

A federal judge sitting in Philadelphia has agreed to certify an order for

U.S. District Court Judge Michael Baylson

interlocutory review with an appeals court in a Paxil products liability case.

U.S. District Judge Michael Baylson, of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, granted a motion by plaintiff Theresa Powell seeking interlocutory review with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit that asks whether a defendant may remove a case a second time based on diversity jurisdiction more than a year after the commencement of the litigation.

Powell sued on behalf of her minor child, Madison Powell, back in June 2011 over claims that her daughter was injured because the mother ingested the antidepressant drug Paxil during pregnancy.

Records show that the month after the suit was filed as a short-form complaint in the Paxil Pregnancy Litigation in the mass tort program at Philadelphia Common Pleas Court, defendant GlaxoSmithKline removed the case to the Eastern District on diversity grounds and because the drug company is not a citizen of Delaware.

On Aug. 1, 2011, Chief Judge J. Curtis Joyner, of the Eastern District, entered an order consolidating Powell’s case with other Paxil claims that GSK had removed on similar diversity grounds.

The consolidated cases were subsequently assigned to Judge Timothy Savage to decide various plaintiffs’ motions to remand.

On Dec. 12, 2011, Savage remanded Powell’s case to Philadelphia’s Common Pleas Court, holding that GSK is a citizen of Pennsylvania and that its removal of the case was barred by the resident-defendant rule.

After that, three federal judges in Philadelphia reached conflicting decisions on the question of GSK’s citizenship and the issue was certified to the Third Circuit for interlocutory appeal.

On June 7 of this year, records show, the Third Circuit held that GSK is a corporate citizen of Delaware.

On Sept. 26 of this year, Baylson, of the Eastern District, granted Powell’s motion to remand her case to state court because GSK’s removal notice was filed more than a year after the action commenced and was thus untimely under federal procedural rules.

Defense attorneys then moved to have Baylson stay his order pending the outcome of other plaintiffs’ motions in similar Paxil claims.

Baylson granted a temporary stay through Dec. 2, records show.

In Baylson’s recent memorandum, the judge notes that a fellow jurist at the Eastern District recently granted plaintiffs’ motions to certify interlocutory review, while another U.S. District Court judge in Philadelphia denied plaintiffs’ motions to remand, simultaneously granting defense motions to transfer venue to the Middle District of Pennsylvania.

In his memorandum and order, which was filed on Dec. 19, Baylson wrote that he would certify the order for interlocutory review so that the Third Circuit can determine a “fair and uniform resolution for all similarly situated cases.”

“The Court finds the Order of September 26, 2013, ‘involves a controlling question of law as to which there is substantial ground for difference of opinion,’” Baylson wrote. “In order to maintain the status quo pending any decision by the Third Circuit, the Court will extend the stay until the Third Circuit has rendered a decision.”

An Arkansas man is suing a French manufacturing company in U.S.

Richard P. Myers

District Court in eastern Pennsylvania over allegations that a defective product made by the defendant caused his permanent blindness.

David Loos claims that he was seriously injured on Dec. 28, 2011, while using an air-powered cutting tool that had a Norton Cut-Off Wheel manufactured by defendant Norton Saint-Gobain, which has its American headquarters in Valley Forge, Pa.

At the time, Loos was cutting a metal fuel line that had been removed from a truck when the cut-off wheel shattered and broke apart, sending a piece of the wheel flying into the plaintiff’s face, striking his safety goggles, and impaling his facial bones, right eye and skull, according to the complaint.

The defendant, Saint-Gobain Abrasives, which does business as Norton Saint-Gobain and Norton Abrasives, is accused of negligence for designing and manufacturing a defective product, failing to properly inspect the device for defects, and failing to remove the defective product from the stream of commerce.

“The Defendants were careless and negligent in manufacturing, advertising, labeling, and selling the product (either directly or indirectly with full knowledge), and for failing to adequately warn of the dangers associated with its use, so as to proximately cause Plaintiff’s injuries,” the lawsuit states.

Loos’ injuries included the loss of vision, deformity, scarring and both physical and mental pain.

The complaint also contains a count of strict product liability in which it is alleged that the defendant’s product was defective at the time it was sold, and because of the defect it was unreasonably dangerous to a consumer such as the plaintiff who uses or might be “reasonably expected to be affected by said product.”

Loos never made any modifications to the defendants’ product before he used it two years ago, the complaint says.

The defendant, the suit asserts, failed to properly warn consumers of the product’s “dangerous characteristics.”

Loos seeks more than $150,000 in compensatory damages, plus unspecified punitive damages, interest, costs and other legal relief.

He is being represented by Philadelphia attorney Richard P. Myers of the firm Paul, Reich & Myers.

The federal case number is 2:13-cv-07588-LFR.

A Dauphin County man has been named as a defendant in a civil action brought by a

Thomas Newell

deliverywoman who says she was mauled by his three adult dogs while she was dropping off a package at the man’s central Pennsylvania home.

Mandy S. Bitting, of Etters, Pa., and her husband, Kristopher Bitting, filed suit on Dec. 19 against Millersburg, Pa., resident Clifford M. Schaffner over a Nov. 21, 2012, incident at the defendant’s Berry Mountain Road house.

Mandy Bitting was making a delivery in connection with her job for a company that contracts on behalf of Federal Express on that winter day last year when she was attacked by three dogs, believed to be boxers, according to the complaint, which was filed at the Dauphin County Common Pleas Court by personal injury lawyer Thomas J. Newell.

Schaffner did not have a drop box at his home, requiring Bitting to deliver the package to the defendant’s front door.

As the plaintiff was walking up Schaffner’s driveway to make the delivery, the defendant’s three dogs came running from the side of the home, with one jumping up and ripping the package out from Bitting’s hands, the lawsuit states.

Bitting, who attempted to walk away, believing that the dogs were preoccupied by the package, was then bitten by the dogs multiple times on various parts of her body, including her buttocks, left calf and left thigh.

The defendant came out of his home during the course of the attack, the lawsuit says, and he was able to pry his dogs away from Bitting.

In his suit, Newell, Bitting’s attorney, claims his client, who sustained numerous lacerations and dog bite puncture wounds, had to have a tetanus vaccine following the incident.

The woman also required other medical care and medications to treat pain and infection, she experienced permanent scarring, she underwent psychological trauma, and she suffered from insomnia and anxiety.

Schaffner is accused of negligence for failing to act with due regard for the rights and safety of the plaintiff, failing to confine his three boxers in a restricted area on his property to protect the safety of Bitting and others using the driveway to make deliveries, failing to post signs on his property warning the plaintiff and others that the dogs were “vicious, unsupervised, unrestrained, and had unfettered and complete access to his driveway,” permitting the dogs to be unconfined on the property when he knew a delivery person would be making his or her way to the home, and creating and permitting a dangerous condition to exist.

Newell also alleges that the defendant’s dogs were not currently vaccinated against the rabies virus, which is required under Pennsylvania law.

The suit states that the defendant was found guilty in early 2013 of violating the Pennsylvania Rabies Prevention and Control in Domestic Animals and Wildlife Act, which shows he is guilty of negligence per se and is “legally responsible for the Plaintiffs’ injuries as identified in this Complaint.”

The defendant was similarly convicted of violating the Pennsylvania Dog Law.

The civil action also contains counts of strict liability and loss of consortium.

The complaint shows that a similar incident occurred at the defendant’s home in the fall of 2012, when deliveryman Joel Rosato, who was employed by the same company as Bitting, was accosted by the same three boxers.

While Rosato wasn’t bitten by the dogs, since an attack was prevented when a woman came outside of the home and corralled the animals, the incident showed the aggressive nature of the canines, the lawsuit states.

During another incident, Rosato was nearly attacked by the animals before he dropped his package and fled the property.

Newell claims the situation warrants the awarding of punitive damages because of the entirety of the circumstances; the dogs either attacked, or nearly attacked, visitors on three separate occasions, and the defendant has apparently yet to change his ways.

Newell noted that other visitors to the home, including public workers, law enforcement personnel or neighbors, could meet a fate similar to that of the plaintiff if the defendant continues to keep his property in an unsafe condition.

“Plaintiff Mandy S. Bitting avers that the Defendant had first-hand knowledge of this attack upon Joel Rosato and/or was informed of the attack by said woman who came out of his home to control his three boxers,” the complaint reads. “This unprovoked attack upon Joel Rosato by the Defendant’s three boxers established their vicious propensities prior to November 21, 2012, which vicious propensities were known to the Defendant prior to November 21, 2012.

In a statement, Newell said that the Bitting incident could have “easily been avoided had the Defendant complied with the requirements of Pennsylvania Law as the vast majority of responsible dog owners do each and every day here in Pennsylvania.”

For each count in the 27-page complaint, Bitting and her husband seek in excess of $50,000 for both compensatory and punitive damages.

The case number is 2013-cv-11100CV.

A Bucks County man is suing the United States Postal Service over a

Todd M. Sailer

roadway incident tied to what he claims was negligent driving on the part of one of the defendant’s employees.

George Steinheiser, who lives in Langhorne, Pa., filed a federal civil action on Jan. 2 at the U.S. District Court in Philadelphia against the government agency over injuries he claims to have sustained on June 29, 2011, during a traffic altercation.

At about 5:15 that afternoon, the complaint says, Steinheiser, who was driving southbound on Wheeler Way, was cut off by a postal worker who was attempting to turn his tractor trailer left into the postal facility’s driveway.

While the two drivers never collided, the plaintiff maintains he was forced to swerve out of the way to avoid hitting the defendant’s vehicle.

Steinheiser claims that as a result of the incident, he sustained a fractured left clavicle, dislocated acromioclavicular joint, abrasions to his forearm, hip and leg, deformity to the left shoulder, restricted range of motion in his left shoulder, and continued pain throughout his body.

The plaintiff claims he had to expend various sums of money on medical care, he suffered a loss of earning capacity, and he has experienced continued physical pain and mental anguish, all as a result of the defendant’s negligence.

The U.S. Postal Service is accused of permitting its driver to operate a dangerous vehicle in a negligent and careless manner, failing to ensure that its vehicle would be operated in a safe manner, and failing to supervise the use of the tractor trailer to ensure that it would not be used by a negligent, careless and/or reckless driver.

Steinheiser seeks more than $50,000 in compensatory damages along with interest and costs.

He is being represented by attorney Todd M. Sailer of the Langhorne firm Begley Carlin and Mandio.

The federal case number is 2:14-cv-00002-WY.

A Philadelphia plaintiffs’ attorney last month secured an $18 million

Joel Feller

settlement with an insurer in what is believed to be one of the largest such bad faith settlements with an insurance company involving an underlying $100,000 policy in Pennsylvania history.

Attorney Joel J. Feller, of the Philadelphia-based law firm of Ross Feller Casey, announced in mid-December that he had reached the multi-million dollar settlement with Erie Insurance Exchange in a bad faith case that was initiated by the family of a 15-year-old boy who sustained severe brain injuries during a February 2003 vehicle accident.

The teenager, Stephen Piper, was a passenger in a car driven by his brother, Kyle, on Feb. 22 of that year when the vehicle struck a utility pole.

The record shows that Stephen Piper, who had to be flown by helicopter to a hospital, and ended up spending several weeks in a coma, subsequently sued his brother in the Lawrence County Court of Common Pleas.

The Legal Intelligencer reported that that case ended with a $15.6 million verdict following a trial on damages; a judge had earlier granted judgment on liability.

The bad faith case, the paper reported, stemmed from Erie’s failure to settle the claim that was “grossly underinsured” with $100,000 in bodily injury limits.

Feller, the attorney representing Stephen Piper, told the Legal Intelligencer that “any reasonable insurance professional would conclude that the value of Stephen’s injuries far exceeded the $100,000 policy.”

Feller was quoted as saying that Erie maintained it did not initially have enough documentation pertaining to the seriousness of Stephen Piper’s injuries.

In his filings, Feller also alleged that the insurance company failed to offer a settlement by the fall of 2003, even though by that point the insurer had supposedly received the requested medical record relating to the bodily injury claims.

When an offer was finally made, the insurer “unreasonably and in bad faith” conditioned the settlement upon Piper’s release of all claims against Erie, Feller reportedly said.

The insurance company had also reportedly argued that any punitive damages claims were time-barred because the bad faith claim was filed following the expiration of the two-year statute of limitations.

The accident that triggered the litigation was reportedly horrific, and involved the vehicle striking a pole and ripping in half, causing Stephen Piper to sustain serious brain injuries and head trauma.

The young man was left with permanent physical and cognitive impairments.

In a Dec. 20 blog entry on MyPhillyLawyer, attorney Dean Weitzman wrote that insurance disputes such as this one are not that unusual for victims of serious vehicle accidents.

“Left to their own devices, profit-motive-driven insurance companies often don’t do the right thing,” Weitzman wrote. “They often don’t live up to their contractual and ethical obligations to pay claims when they are due. Instead, they put their own greedy corporate interests ahead of those of innocent victims.”

Weitzman also took a shot at state lawmakers, saying the Pennsylvania General Assembly has been enacting legislation that doesn’t actually benefit citizens.

An example he gave was the recent change to joint-and-several liability, specifically with regard to insurance law, a move Weitzman says makes it hard for vehicle accident victims to collect “adequate damages for their severe injuries.”

“Insurance companies exhibit bad faith when they refuse to pay legitimate claims in a timely manner,” Weitzman wrote. “Bad faith is illegal and can cost insurance companies lots of extra damages, as it did in this case.”

An attorney representing home improvement retailer Lowes has filed a

Bruce M. Rotfeld

petition with the U.S. District Court in Philadelphia to take up jurisdiction in a slip-and-fall case against the corporate defendant that was initiated by a Philadelphia couple in state court.

James and Renee Harvin are suing Lowe’s and employee Patrick Kirby over eye injuries James Harvin allegedly sustained after tripping and falling over a hazard at the Lowes location on Christopher Columbus Boulevard in South Philadelphia in late April 2012.

The suit, which was originally filed in late July at Philadelphia’s Common Pleas Court by Philadelphia attorney Bruce M. Rotfeld, does not specify the exact nature of the alleged defect in the store that caused the plaintiff to fall.

It only says that the store and Kirby were negligent for failing to eliminate the hazard, failing to properly inspect the premises, failing to prevent the accident, and failing to warn of the dangerous condition.

The complaint alleges that as a result of the incident, James Harvin sustained injuries to his left eye, including a ruptured globe with anterior vitrectomy iris suture with repositioning of the left eye.

James Harvin ended up suffering eye pain, emotional tension, an impairment of earning ability and other personal injuries, the suit states.

Kirby, who normally works at the Lowe’s location on Aramingo in Philadelphia’s Port Richmond neighborhood, was acting as the managing employee of the South Philly location on the day of the alleged incident, the record shows.

The Harvin’s claim they incurred substantial medical bills to their financial detriment.

Renee Harvin has a loss of consortium claim in the complaint alleging she has been deprived of her husband’s love and companionship due to his injuries.

The couple seeks more than $50,000, in addition to costs, expenses, attorney’s fees and other relief.

In her removal notice, Lowes attorney Jennifer M. Herrmann, of the Philadelphia firm Mintzer, Sarowitz, Zeris, Ledva & Meyers, wrote that the matter would be more appropriate before a federal jurist because the damages sought would likely exceed the jurisdictional limit in a Pennsylvania trial court.

The defense attorney also cites diversity in citizenship among the parties as justification for transferring venue.

Herrmann additionally points out that the complaint is silent as to the citizenship of defendant Kirby, listing his work address, not his home address, in court papers.

“Regardless, there is no independent claim asserted against Mr. Kirby,” Herrmann wrote. “Instead, the references to Mr. Kirby relate to activities in the course and scope of his employment.”

Herrmann went on to write that she believes Kirby was fraudulently joined as a defendant in the litigation.

The court docket shows that the matter has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Robert F. Kelly.

The federal case number is 2:13-cv-04746-RK. 

A federal judge in Philadelphia has granted a motion by drugmaker

U.S. District Judge Harvey Bartle III

GlaxoSmithKline to transfer a Paxil products liability case from the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to the federal courthouse in Minnesota.

In an Aug. 14 memorandum, U.S. District Judge Harvey Bartle determined that transfer to Minnesota was appropriate because the plaintiffs reside in Minnesota and it will “clearly be less expensive for them to have this action tried near their home.

“The defendant, as a large corporation, does not bear a meaningfully heavier financial burden in one district versus another,” Bartle wrote.

The case involves Julie Guddeck, a mother who claims her ingestion of the antidepressant drug Paxil during pregnancy led to her daughter, Kaylea Guddeck, sustaining injuries.

The girl allegedly had a critical neural tube defect that required surgery, the plaintiff asserts in her complaint.

The lawsuit, which was originally filed at Philadelphia’s Common Pleas Court and later removed to the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, contains counts of negligence, breach of warranty and strict liability.

Defense attorneys subsequently filed a petition to move the litigation from Philadelphia to the federal court in Minnesota.

Bartle noted that while venue would be proper in both federal courts – the plaintiffs live in Minnesota while GSK is headquartered in the Philadelphia area – transfer to Minnesota is appropriate in this case because it would be more convenient for the parties as indicated by their physical and financial conditions.

The judge noted that Julie Guddeck was prescribed Paxil in Minnesota by a physician practicing in that state, the plaintiff ingested the drug there, and she became pregnant and gave birth to her daughter in Minnesota.

Bartle also pointed out that the plaintiffs would likely call as witnesses people who are based in Minnesota, and who might have a difficult time getting to the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to testify in the case.

Those witnesses would also be “well out of the reach of this court’s subpoena power,” Bartle wrote.

“It is more practical to have the trial in Minnesota where both the plaintiffs and their physicians are located. It will be less expensive and easier than having the trial on the opposite side of the country in Pennsylvania,” the judicial memorandum states. “Minnesota not only has a strong interest in resolving the product liability claims of its own citizens but also is the site where the injuries took place as well as a majority of the relevant events or omissions.”

Bartle further wrote that the public factors favor transfer to Minnesota, and that regardless of what substantive law will apply in the case, “there is no doubt that a federal judge in Minnesota is fully capable of applying it.”

The record shows that GSK is being represented by attorneys Joseph E. O’Neil and Carolyn L. McCormack, of the Philadelphia firm Lavin O’Neil Ricci Cedrone & Disipio.

Those representing the plaintiffs include attorneys from Baum & Hedlund.