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  • Commonwealth v. Drummond

    Publication Date: 2022-12-12
    Practice Area: Criminal Law
    Industry:
    Court: Supreme Court
    Judge: Justice Wecht
    Attorneys: For plaintiff:
    for defendant:
    Case Number: 28 EAP 2021

    Trial courts should not use personal, emotion-laden hypotheticals couched in language of willingness to act when instructing juries on the standard of reasonable doubt but should instead use language framed in terms of hesitation to act. Order of the superior court affirmed.

  • Scott v. Pennsylvania Bd. of Prob. & Parole

    Publication Date: 2022-11-14
    Practice Area: Criminal Law
    Industry:
    Court: Supreme Court
    Judge: Justice Donohue
    Attorneys: For plaintiff:
    for defendant:
    Case Number: 16 WAP 2021

    Constitutional challenge to statutory bar on parole for life/capital sentences constituted a challenge to the legality of sentence that had to be brought under the Post Conviction Relief Act, and thus the commonwealth court lacked jurisdiction to hear the petition. Order of the commonwealth court affirmed.

  • Commonwealth v. Price

    Publication Date: 2022-11-07
    Practice Area: Criminal Law
    Industry:
    Court: Supreme Court
    Judge: Justice Donohue
    Attorneys: For plaintiff:
    for defendant:
    Case Number: 18 WAP 2021

    Inevitable discovery doctrine was separate and distinct from the issue of sufficient probable cause for a search warrant, as both arguments had different bases in law and required different factual evidence, such that the commonwealth's appeal challenging a trial court's probable cause determination did not impliedly raise an inevitable discovery argument as a "subsidiary issue." Order of the superior court vacated, case remanded.

  • In the Interest of K.N.L.

    Publication Date: 2022-11-07
    Practice Area: Family Law
    Industry:
    Court: Supreme Court
    Judge: Justice Dougherty
    Attorneys: For plaintiff:
    for defendant:
    Case Number: 1 EAP 2022

    Trial court applied an incorrect analysis to appellant's petition to intervene in an adoption based on his in loco parentis status and the correct standard reviewed whether a non-foster-parent third party had a substantial and genuine interest in formalizing a permanent parental relationship with child and an individual's previously held in loco parentis status might demonstrate that interest. Reversed.

  • In re: Am. Network Ins. Co. (in Liquidation)

    Publication Date: 2022-11-07
    Practice Area: Civil Appeals
    Industry: Insurance
    Court: Supreme Court
    Judge: Justice Mundy
    Attorneys: For plaintiff:
    for defendant:
    Case Number: 58 MAP 2021

    Appellant's notice of appeal from a commonwealth court panel's order was a timely appeal as of right from a final order in a declaratory judgment action, which triggered the jurisdictional limits imposed by 42 Pa.C.S. §5505. The high court affirmed.

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    Texas Legal Malpractice & Lawyer Discipline 2023

    Authors: Charles F. Herring, JR, Jason M. Panzer, Leah Turner

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  • Povacz v. Pennsylvania Pub. Util. Comm'n

    Publication Date: 2022-09-12
    Practice Area: Public Utilities
    Industry: Energy | State and Local Government
    Court: Supreme Court
    Judge: Justice Donohue
    Attorneys: For plaintiff:
    for defendant:
    Case Number: 22-1022

    Commonwealth court erred in holding that act 129 did not mandate installation of smart meters and court found customers failed to meet their burden of proving, by a preponderance of the evidence, a conclusive causal connection between RF emissions from smart meters and adverse human health effects. Reversed in part and affirmed in part.

  • O'Neill v. State Employees Ret. Sys.

    Publication Date: 2022-09-12
    Practice Area: Labor Law
    Industry:
    Court: Supreme Court
    Judge: Justice Todd
    Attorneys: For plaintiff:
    for defendant:
    Case Number: 22-1024

    Commonwealth Court erred in forfeiting appellant's pension under Public Employee Pension Forfeiture Act because appellant's guilty plea to 18 U.S.C. §1001 did not trigger pension forfeiture since §1001 and 18 Pa.C.S. §4906 were not "substantially the same." Reversed.

  • Kornfeind v. New Werner Holding Co., Inc.

    Publication Date: 2022-09-12
    Practice Area: Products Liability
    Industry: Manufacturing | Retail
    Court: Supreme Court
    Judge: Justice Mundy
    Attorneys: For plaintiff:
    for defendant:
    Case Number: 22-1030

    Pennsylvania borrowing statute only applied temporal restrictions under foreign jurisdiction's statute of limitations, not its statute of repose, where the language of the borrowing statute expressly referred to the "accrual" of claims and where Pennsylvania considered statutes of repose substantive law subject to choice of law analysis. Order of the superior court affirmed.

  • Goodwin v. Goodwin

    Publication Date: 2022-09-05
    Practice Area: Family Law
    Industry:
    Court: Supreme Court
    Judge: Justice Brobson
    Attorneys: For plaintiff:
    for defendant:
    Case Number: 22-1002

    Superior court properly found that life insurance proceeds and an IRA wife received on her child's death during her marriage to husband were "gifts" under §3501(a)(3) of the divorce code and were not marital property. Affirmed.

  • Commonwealth v. Lopez

    Publication Date: 2022-08-29
    Practice Area: Criminal Law
    Industry:
    Court: Supreme Court
    Judge: Justice Dougherty
    Attorneys: For plaintiff:
    for defendant:
    Case Number: 22-0964

    Trial court was not obligated under rules of criminal procedure to conduct ability to pay hearing prior to imposing mandatory court costs, where rule governing imposition of costs or restitution by its terms clearly applied only to post-sentencing hearings. Order of the superior court affirmed.