A Philadelphia Common Pleas Court judge should not have ordered a civil trial to proceed with eight jurors instead of 12 over the objection of litigators who initially requested a nonjury trial, the Pennsylvania Superior Court has ruled.
Michael Gianni fell and was injured at a residential construction site in 2002. Gianni and a co-plaintiff filed a negligence lawsuit against the owner of the site, Barry Katz, and the contractor at the site, William G. Phillips Inc., according to an opinion issued last week by Superior Court Judge Seamus P. McCaffery. Katz was dismissed by stipulation in 2005, McCaffery said.
